NZ School Children Leading Environmental Effort

New Zealand School Children Leading The Way In 2003 Environmental Effort

The Clean Up New Zealand Trust is looking to inspire more than 250,000 Kiwis to clean up their local environment as part of the country's largest environmental event, Clean Up New Zealand Week, September 15--21 2003.

School children are currently leading the way, with nearly 80,000 children from over 390 schools nationwide already enrolled to take part in litter clean ups and other waste reduction projects. Organisers of this year's event are calling for all Kiwis to follow their example by registering to participate.

Clean Up New Zealand Week is a national environmental initiative committed to educating and encouraging New Zealanders to clean up and preserve their environment. Longer term, the Trust is focused on influencing communities to work towards implementing waste reduction strategies.

Clean Up activities can include removing rubbish from local parks, roadside clean ups, underwater dives to spruce up waterways and graffiti removals.

In 2002, an estimated 3,000 tonnes of waste was removed from sites around the country in Clean Up activities including clearing illegal dumping sites and underwater dives, with the most common rubbish item found to be cigarette butts. Nearly 200,000 Kiwis took part from the top to the bottom of New Zealand, with local community teams, businesses and a record 81,000 school students participating.

Clean Up New Zealand project manager, Juliet Malins, says it was great to see the rise in the number of young people getting involved in the event last year and taking a responsible attitude towards keeping the country clean and green.

"Young people played a huge role in last year's Clean Up success and with nearly 400 schools already registered in 2003, children are continuing to be an inspiration for everyone to clean up their local community. It would be great to see the same level of enthusiasm from other groups throughout New Zealand," says Ms Malins.

Registrations can be made by visiting www.cleanupnz.org.nz -- the website allows schools, community groups, businesses and families to register their clean up event and provides information on what activities are planned in each region for Clean Up New Zealand Week. Alternatively, the Clean Up NZ Trust can be reached on the 0800 315 000 hotline.

The Trust works in partnership with local councils, schools, the Ministry for the Environment and sponsors to help run the annual event. This year the corporate sponsors are McDonald's, The Warehouse, DDB Advertising and TV3.

Clean Up NZ Week is part of Clean Up The World, an international community--based environmental programme run in conjunction with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which has motivated more than 40 million people annually in a range of activities to improve local environments.

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