This year's Clean Up Australia Day will represent the first since the passing of its founder and passionate advocate Ian Kiernan.
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Ian Kiernan passed away in October last year.
He was a successful businessman and yachtsman, but also a passionate environmental campaigner who founded the Clean Up Australia Day movement.
It has since gone global and become the Clean Up The World campaign.
It was during the around the world yacht challenge he became appalled at the state of the world's oceans and pledged to do something about his own backyard.
In 1989 he held the Clean Up Sydney Harbour event.
To say the concept resonated loudly would be an understatement.
Over 40,000 volunteers turned out to clean up Sydney Harbour and over 5000 tonnes of rubbish was collected.
From there the concept grew and developed.
Now events are held all over the country in all sorts of settings.
In the Illawarra community a large number of clean ups are being held from school events on Friday to the many community events mostly organised for the official day on Sunday.
However Saturday sees a unique event which has shades of resemblance to Kiernan's original event in Sydney Harbour.
The Wollogong Harbour Land and Sea Clean Up has hallmarks of that original event and will see a host of community organisations partner to clean up one of our most iconic areas.
This event will be actually held on Saturday and people wishing to participate must register at the registration site at 9 am on Saturday besides the Yachties Cafe in the central harbour near the slipways.
It is yet another example of how this community, its organisations and council can work together to make where we live a better place.
There are plenty of opportunities to get involved and if you want to check out an event near you simply go to cleanupaustraliaday.org.au.
