Cleanup Australia Day

On Sunday, March 7, 2010, twenty Art of Living volunteers in Sydney joined hands with the organizers of Clean Up Australia to contribute to the nation’s largest environment event – Clean Up Australia Day.

A park in the area was selected and volunteers got busy with clearing operations: collecting beer cans, plastic bags, bits of wrapper, cigarette stubs and such remnants of consumer life that were so visibly polluting an otherwise beautiful park.

For the volunteers, it became a fantastic combination of seva and yoga as they bent up and down to collect rubbish, stretched up and wide to reach for the plastics entangled in far off branches and carried heavy bags of rubbish on their shoulders to the garbage bins.

The real operations, however, began when volunteers noticed the terrible state of the nearby creek: choked with garbage, the water had transformed to an ugly green – black stagnant pool. Unfazed by the grime, volunteers clambered down steep slopes and rocks and waded into the creek.

After an hour’s labour in the afternoon sun volunteers managed to fill 5 garbage bags, freeing the creek from man’s insensible polluting. It was delight to see the creek so clean.

The combination of fun and the seva attracted other patrons of the park with some cheering and others clapping and thanking the volunteers for the work done. Clean Up Australia organisers had arranged for free water bottles, food vouchers and certificates recognizing The Art of Living volunteers’ contribution.