Campaign Gets South-West Talking Rubbish

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An Olympic athlete, an interstate truck driver and a Miles grazier are among a group of South-West Queensland locals ‘talking rubbish’ with the Queensland Murray-Darling Committee (QMDC) in a bid to stop roadside littering.

Arguably the campaign’s most recognisable ‘clean up champion’ is 20-year-old Rio Olympian Matthew Denny, who literally threw his support behind the concept by hitting a rubbish bin with a discus for the television commercial.

“I’m a proud Queenslander and I love my hometown of Allora, it’s such a beautiful part of the world to drive through and live in. I don’t understand why people choose to litter when it’s so easy not to, I always bin it! ” Matthew said.      

Nolan’s Interstate Transport truck driver Paul Carrington said he sees “someone throwing something out the window” on every trip through the region.

“My pet hate is driving past a takeaway food place and a couple of kilometres up the road, people throw the bag out the window, into the middle of the road, and you run over it. It’s just laziness,“ Paul said.

Meantime Miles Grazier, Jack Asplin, believes litter is getting worse on the Leichhardt Highway that fronts his family’s cattle property.

“I’ve lived here all my life and over that time have noticed a big increase in rubbish, its laying in the table drains and if we get decent rain it gets washed into the waterways,” Jack said.

‘Talking Rubbish’ is an extension of the recent “Love Queensland – Let’s keep it clean” campaign which left a legacy of roadside signage and brought QMDC together with the Australian Packaging Covenant (APC), the Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage Protection (EHP), and the region’s six local government areas.  

QMDC CEO Geoff Penton said the campaign asked motorists to keep litter inside vehicles, to report littering to www.ehp.qld.gov.au and to get community members involved in roadside clean ups like Adopt-a-spot.