Community Events

National Tree Day 2015


GRIFFITH CLEAN UP WEEKEND 1st & 2nd AUGUST 2015

The Griffith City Council Environment & Sustainability Committee’s Annual Griffith Clean Up Weekend is coming up.  The Annual Griffith Clean Up Weekend is to be held on Saturday 1st & Sunday 2nd August 2015. This year the Griffith City Council Environment & Sustainability Committee would like to invite you to register your own clean-up site with Clean Up Australia.

As well as participating in the flagship Clean Up Australia Day event held on the first Sunday in March, Griffith City Council’s Environment & Sustainability Committee organises another event in August each year and encourages the community to help clean up Griffith. These events, as well as the work Council is doing with illegal dumping are all helping to tackle the issue of littering in our City.

Individuals, schools businesses, groups or organisations can organise a Clean Up site by:

  1. Identifying a space in your local area that needs to be cleaned up. It can be the local park, street, a local waterway or bushland.
  2. Register your site with Clean Up Australia as an ‘every day clean-up site’.  To register your Clean Up site, visit www.cleanupaustralia.org.au or call 1800 282 329.  You will be sent a FREE Clean Up Kit enclosing bags, gloves and other important materials to help coordinate your site.
  3. Return the enclosed form to Griffith City Council’s Environmental Health Officer, Renae Foggiato by fax 6962 7161 or email Renae.Foggiato@griffith.nsw.gov.au to ensure your rubbish is collected following the clean-up.
  4. Round up members, friends and family to help.

Your support does make a difference. To register to participate in this year’s Griffith Clean Up Weekend, please visit www.cleanupaustralia.org.au or contact Griffith City Council’s Environmental Health Officer, Renae Foggiato on 6962 8100.

Annual Griffith Clean Up Success

Around 60 volunteers recently helped to make the 2014 Annual Griffith Clean Up a success. The volunteers helped to collect over 100 bags of rubbish. Sites cleaned up around Griffith included Bridge Rd, Yawarra Park (including Kennedy St, Noorla St & Dickson Rd), Hermits Cave, Mackay Ave, Kalinda Rd, Scott Rd & Walla Ave.

As well as participating in the flagship Clean Up Australia Day event held on the first Sunday in March, Griffith City Council’s Environment & Sustainability Committee organises another event in August each year and encourages the community to help clean up Griffith.

Every day is Clean Up Australia Day, so if the organised days don’t work for you, you can register as an everyday clean-up site at http://www.cleanupaustraliaday.org.au/register/ and help to clean up Griffith any day of the year. If you require assistance in registering a site, please contact Council’s Environment & Health Department on 6962 8100.

Council and the Environment & Sustainability Committee would like to thank everyone that helped to make the Annual Griffith Clean Up a Success. The next scheduled clean up event will be Clean Up Australia Day on Sunday March 1 2015.

 

Photo: Clean up volunteers at Yawarra Park.                                       Photo: Clean up volunteers at Bridge Road

 

Success at National Tree Day 2014

Almost 40 volunteers got their hands dirty as part of efforts to improve mallee woodland habitat in the Lake Wyangan area.  As part of National Tree Day 2014, volunteers planted 250 trees, shrubs and grasses at Lake Wyangan picnic grounds.  The plantings were designed to improve habitat for native birds and wildlife in the locality.

In the past, much of the understory had been cleared from the picnic grounds.  What we are aiming to achieve is the replacement of some of the natural diversity.

Regenerating the landscape is important for native animals and biodiversity.  We see across the landscape that over time, if we don't replace some of the things that have been removed, we start to lose some of the diversity from the landscape.  With a loss of plant species, also comes a loss of our wildlife. 

We expect that woodland birds will benefit the most from the revegetated area.  They need the shrub and groundstory plants, which they rely on for shelter and protection.  The shrubs produce seed, pollen and nectar and attract insects which are an important food source for many of our native birds.

National Tree Day is Australia's largest tree-planting and nature care event which Griffith City Council is proud to be a part of.

In 2013, a similar number of volunteers joined Council staff to plant 220 trees, shrubs and groundcovers at the City Park food forest.  Everything in the food forest has been planted for the community to pick and eat.  Some plants in the gardens are well known, like oranges and mandarins, and other indigenous bush tucker species such as saltbush berries or native pigface leaves are less obvious.

Each year over 200,000 people take part in National Tree Day events at 3,000 sites across the country.

Find up-to-date details of our future National Tree Day events at http://treeday.planetark.org/

Photo: Griffith community members planting natives shrubs at Lake Wyangan in 2014

Griffith City Council Websites