t’s time to get your hands, or at least gloves, a little dirty to help clean up our big back yard.

Registrations are now open for Clean Up Australia Day 2019, so it’s time to check out rubbish hotspots in your neighbourhood and challenge your friends and family to make 2019 the year of change.

Clarence Valley Mayor, Jim Simmons, encouraged businesses to focus their action on Business Clean Up Day – Tuesday, February 26, with schools to run their clean up on Friday, March 1, and youth and community groups taking to their streets over the weekend of March 2-3.

“Participating in one or more of these events is the perfect opportunity to join with family, friends, neighbours and colleagues to remove all the rubbish accumulating in your local park, bushland,

beaches and waterways before it damages our wildlife,” he said.

Cr Simmons said the area around the fast food outlets near the highway in South Grafton was one of the litter hotspots in the Clarence Valley, with drink containers and wrappings an ongoing problem around Derek Palmer Place, the bus interchange in Ryan Street and the nature strip along the edge of the railway line between Spring Street and the railway station.

Online registrations are free and now open at www.cleanupaustraliaday.org.au

“Clean Up Australia Day is the nation’s largest community mobilisation event, and 2019 is the perfect time to band together to Clean Up Australia,” Cr Simmons said. “Change starts with you. The key to success is stopping litter becoming rubbish. There are so many actions every one of us can take to help reduce the eight million tonnes of plastic entering our oceans worldwide each year.”

For more information or to register your site, go to www.cleanupaustraliaday.org.au