‘Clean Up Australia’ capmpaigner Ian Kiernan dies at the age of 78

Ian Kiernan, AO, who started the ‘Clean Up Australia’ which became a movement worldwide inspiring millions of people to change their attitude towards littering, has passed away at the age of 78. The campaign which started in 1990 spread to the world’s 120 nations with 80 million volunteers taking part in 2017.    The campaign reached even in India when people in Mumbai take brooms in their hands to clean up parts of the city.

Volunteers in ‘Clean Up Mumbai’ campaign

Clean Up Mumbai campaign started many years before Modi’s Swatchh India campaign when our Prime Minister took broom to show in the streets of Varanasi to clean India. Even here in Sydney groups like the CIA have joined in the ‘Clean Up’ drive which happens in the month of March every year.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said about Ian, “We join the many people around the world who are mourning the death of Ian Kiernan AO, whose Clean Up campaign became a worldwide movement inspiring millions of people to change their attitude towards littering.

“There is no doubt Ian Kiernan’s first “Clean Up” campaign in 1989 was instrumental in changing community attitudes about what we do with waste.”

“It is a tribute to his determination, capability and high degree of personal commitment that an event that started with 40,000 people in Sydney became a worldwide movement ”“ Clean Up the World ”“ attracting 40 million people in 120 countries,”

“A passionate and highly competitive yachtsman, he set the Australian record for a solo circumnavigation of the world and it was the amount of litter he saw at sea that brought him back to Sydney determined to make a change.”

Ian leaves behind wife Judy and daughters Sally and Pip.

 

 

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