Lee Cousins, Dwayne Matheson and Denis Kelly prepare for a day of cleaning up Isabella Falls, a popular scenic spot where visitors often leave behind their rubbish. Photo: Supplied.
In the spirit of Clean Up Australia Day on the first Sunday of March, a Cooktown school is reflecting on the lessons learned at a notoriously rubbish-ridden local spot after seeing the aftermath of dumping first-hand.
Students and staff of Holy Spirit College (HSC) Cooktown donned their gloves at Isabella Falls on 27 February to remove half a dozen bags of rubbish, abandoned camping equipment and even a dumped tractor tyre.
Student Dwayne Matheson, who assisted in collecting the huge tyre, said he enjoyed doing his part in keeping Cooktown clean, adding he hoped others would follow the students’ example.
“[I enjoyed] looking after the environment, and everyone working together like a community,” he said.
“[It’s important] to make sure people in the community can teach their kids to look after the environment, and teach tourists who come to the area about keeping the area clean.”
The school was invited by South Cape York Catchments (SCYC) to learn about the significance of Clean Up Australia Day.
“Isabella Falls is an area known as a bit of a place where people leave all their rubbish behind after they’ve visited, so it was a good spot for us to all get together and do a clean-up of the area,” SYCY operations manager Denis Kelly said.
“Giving the students opportunities to go out and do this kind of stuff is invaluable; they get to see that adults are interested in this stuff as well, and they get to see the disrespect that some of their fellow community members leave the places in, so it gives them a bit more pride in their community.
“You can talk about it until the cows come home in a classroom, but until people actually get out there and do it, and experience some of the hardships that come with a clean-up, it’s hard to fully understand.”
HSC head of campus Sila Pati said the day was an important experience for the students in helping even if it was not their mess, with many reluctant to get involved at first.
“Straight away, the kids were like, ‘I’m not cleaning up their rubbish’, but we helped them to understand, you know, this is what we do, we try our best,” he said.
“It was really about understanding the significance of looking after our country, looking after the environment, and maintaining a safe environment, and all that stuff has to start somewhere.
“The young people thought, ‘let’s do this then’, and there were no more complaints, they all jumped on the bus ready to have a go.”
A huge tractor tyre was Dwayne Matheson’s interesting find of the day, putting his strength to the test as they brought it up to be collected. Photo: Supplied.
