These Helensburgh women are Making a Difference, One Rubbish Bag at a Time

The bushland that lines Garrawarra’s stretch of Old Princes Highway yielded 24 rubbish-filled sacks and an old microwave, printer and vanity cleaner on Sunday, August 20, as a brigade of stalwart women volunteered their morning to clear the roadside litter.

It was the second clean-up at the site in two months organised by Helensburgh resident Meg Kenworthy, who grew frustrated watching on as trash gradually accumulated along the highway.

Meg says that at first she’d only intended the clean-ups to be a one-woman project.

“Working in the finance industry, I don't get much satisfaction or feel as though I'm doing much for humanity, and so I always try and do something on the side to make me feel good about that I'm contributing to the world,” Meg said.

“My daughter actually moved to Adelaide recently with her boyfriend, and they put me onto this [YouTuber] called Beau Miles. He's a bit of a backyard warrior…  he's a runner too, and he did a six-kilometre run to the tip, but along the way he picked up any rubbish that he found, and so that was kind of my inspiration.

“I don't get out of the 'Burgh a lot by road these days because I'm either on the train to work or working from home, but I noticed how disgusting the old highway was getting, and I just put the two of them together and thought, 'I'm just going do it myself and get out there with bags and just start cleaning up the highway'.”

Meg put the call-out to Facebook community forum Helensburgh Help and 2508 Suburbs in late July, asking if group members would like to donate re-useable sacks, but what she received instead were offers to join her.

“I asked on Helensburgh Help for bags and then it all just steamrolled from there,” Meg said.

“Other people started saying not only did they have bags, but that they wanted to help as well, and that was how the first clean-up happened.”

On July 30, Meg and four other women – then strangers, but now friends – rolled up their sleeves, collecting 20 to 30 sacks of rubbish in a two-hour period from the Cawleys Road gate towards Garrawarra and the motorway.

While trash thrown or lost from passing cars is most problematic, there were almost two dozen instances of dumping were reported to council during the two clean-ups. These included discarded bike tires, building waste and garden and kitchen appliances.

After posting about their first haul on Helensburgh Help, the group of five grew to 20, prompting Meg to create the Facebook group "Making a Difference: One Rubbish Bag at a Time".

“When we got back from that one and I posted the results of that day, people just started coming out of the woodwork,” Meg said.

“So many people were saying that they have been thinking the same, but they just hadn't got around to doing anything about it, and that they were so happy that this had started because it was annoying them as well.”

“[It’s] all women, funnily enough, local women of all ages that have just been on Helensburgh Help and want to join the group… hopefully we'll even get some guys who join us.”

With a group of 20 to draw on now, Meg plans to hold a clean-up once a month. For now, the focus remains on maintaining the bushland around the Princes Highway.

“We wanted it to be something that people enjoy and look forward to, not that it becomes a chore, so we want it to be once a month,” she said.

“It's only two hours, but if we get a decent number of people, that two hours makes such a big difference.

“I tell you, after the first one, I felt such a sense of accomplishment and happiness, and also the other women, we all felt like we met new people.

“While we were walking, we chatted, we got to know each other, we were thinking that we spend $50 that we found on some bubbles and have a social get-together.”

For Meg, who intended to tackle the issue alone, the response from the community has been overwhelming.

“Our community is just the best; whatever you need, they come up with,” she said.

“I got gloves, I got all brand-new vests just from people in the community who said, ‘Yeah, I've got whatever you need. Just let me know how many.’”

“Even as we were walking along, we had cars tooting us and people in cars and cyclists yelling, ‘Thank you.’

“A lady stopped for a chat in the middle of a highway, and she said she couldn't do it because she had small kids, but she was so thankful. People have just been really lovely.”