Students from Wade High School got their hands dirty as part of Clean Up Australia Day.
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WADE High Year 12 students spent the afternoon up on Scenic Hill picking up as much rubbish as they could last Wednesday as part of Clean Up Australia Day.
By the end of the afternoon the group of 45 picked up enough rubbish to entirely fill the back of a ute with garbage bags.
The choice of Scenic Hill was an easy one according to Year 12 Advisory Rebecca Chapman.
“Teachers and students of Wade High have noticed that there is rubbish scattered all over Scenic Hill,” she said.
“It is such a beautiful place that is meant for everyone to enjoy.
“So we wanted to try and keep the walkways and bush areas up there clean for everybody to use and enjoy.
“We often have out of town visitors that check out Hermits Cave etc and we wanted to hep leave a good impression of Griffith with them.”
The occasion was used as a team building exercise for the year 12 students as they worked towards a common goal of cleaning the tourist attraction.
The aspect of the job taking the group of students and teachers by most surprise was the amount of rubbish around the area.
“The students couldn't believe how much rubbish was up there,” she said.
“They were also surprised that people were just leaving there rubbish on the hill and not taking it with them - especially considering there is a bin located at the top near the lookout.”
The student theorised some of the rubbish was coming from people littering from their car windows driving up the hill, as much of the debris was found on the side of the road.
The teachers involved wanted to thank the students for their attitude throughout the day, helping each other throughout despite the hot conditions.
“They did something really positive for the environment and their community of which they were very proud of,” she said.
Clean Up Australia Days across the country have been working to rid the environment of as much rubbish as possible.
In 2016 over three quarters of a million volunteers have removed the equivalent of more than 16,000 ute loads of rubbish from 8205 locations across Australia.
Over the 26 years of the clean up event volunteers have donated more than 31 million hours at over 166 thousand locations across the country.
The rubbish equates to 331,000 ute loads of rubbish being collected – enough to stretch back-to-back from Brisbane to Sydney.