As March into Sustainability month comes to a close, there's one group who will echo its message all year round.

The Clean Up Wangaratta (CUW) group have been a pillar of the Wangaratta community, contributing hours of time to keeping Wangaratta’s streets and surroundings clean and tidy.

After more than five years of commitment to cleaning up, the group are changing direction by working with the North East Waste Alliance.

The group was initiated by Wangaratta Landcare & Sustainability Inc in 2019 to help fill the void after the disbandment of the ‘Community Pride Committee’ in 2015, taking on responsibility for litter removal.

It replaced the Waste Wise Wangaratta group from the former Wangaratta Urban Landcare to become more litter focused.

Nine members make up the CUW group, embedding a system of two convenors and seven advisors and workers who network with other community members and organisations such as the Wangaratta Stationers and the North Wangaratta community.

According to member Andy Kimber, they've successfully stripped the litter from two out of five of the worst sites identified six years ago.

"The Old Hume Highway, which was adopted in 2019, has been cleaned up to mirror North Wangaratta Community’s 20 years of superb cleaning up efforts north of our town," he said.

"The other badly littered public site was One Mile Creek, where a lot of effort has come from CUW plus other groups such as the local scouts, post 2021.

"One Mile Creek has been transformed with masses of old litter removed and now newly dropped material is managed by a network of at least 12 litter removalists picker who live and walk near the creek."

While they’re incredibly pleased with what they’ve accomplished, Andy said credit is also due to Coles, Woolworths and the Wangaratta Railway authorities, who have all helped clean up three of the five worst litter sites in town.

"The two main supermarket carparks have been tidied up as part of recent improvements and there have been huge upgrades within the railway station environment," he said.

The impact these volunteers have had in looking after our town cannot be understated, but this kind of positive change relies on people doing the right thing.

“Locals armed with simple 'picker uppers' can carry out litter removal so easily when walking around, and it is so satisfying to help keep the immediate environment in good condition – in particular our special rivers and creeks” Andy said.

"In addition, the 'Snap, Send, Solve' app can be used to report issues, particularly the wayward shopping trolleys plus litter dumps."

Moving forward, their vision isn't changing, but instead expanding by teaming up with the North East Waste Alliance.

"We have decided to become more involved with the comparatively new North East Waste Alliance, which brings together communities in the North East from Benalla to Wodonga," Andy said.

Be part of CUW's mission to keep our environment clean and healthy by visiting wlsi.org.au/