By Sahar Foladi
Step up to clean up this Sunday with City of Greater Dandenong deputy mayor taking on the lead.
This may just be an annual tradition for deputy mayor Lana Formoso to collectively work on cleaning up our local areas where we live and thrive on Clean up Australia Day.
“It’s an important event especially within our municipality everybody likes to dump rubbish in our municipality but it needs to change,” Cr Fromoso said.
Just like last year, Cr Formoso along with her family and group of volunteers will visit 26 parks in her ward to pick up litter with a BBQ to finish off.
“My mum will be doing the sausage while we collect rubbish. The quicker we clean up the quicker we can have the BBQ. How could you say no to that?”
Cr Formoso said she was inspired to continue this year’s clean-up day by her children who insisted they do it this year.
“When I was doing it (the event last year) my son had leukaemia and we didn’t even know. Here I was pushing him to go harder when he was sick.
“This is very triggering for me as well because it’s now been one year since he’s been sick. My kids were pushing me again saying mum let’s do it again. I’m setting an example for the community but also my kids.
“I would’ve pushed more last year had I not gone through what I went through with my son. Now that I have more fuel in the tank I will work harder on issues like this.”
Cr Formoso, a passionate and environmentally conscious community leader had always been part of Clean up Australia Day ever since she was a little kid in primary school and has since stayed with her.
“I’ve been pushing for the council to be proactive about the rubbish issue we have in our municipality. I think they got sick and tired of me jumping up and down about that.”
In last year’s collection blitz the group finished off with 17 large sacks of rubbish as well as hundreds of face masks.
This year Cr Formoso hopes to see lot less of disposable face masks and chrome gas cylinders.
However, one thing that won’t seem to change is the weather.
“It makes you sluggish. It was hot last year, this Sunday is the same. Everybody needs to slip, slop, slap and slide and I’ll be providing refreshments,” Cr Formoso said.
So far 20 volunteers are lined up to word towards cleaner environment and Cr Formoso is confident the numbers will only increase.
“I feel like this is something that could pick up momentum. Imagine if everybody did what I did. Can you imagine what kind of movement we could get going?”
In her role as the deputy mayor she has also pushed for environmental topics and events to gain more exposure through council’s social media pages.
“Take pride in where you live, educate your family and yourself about environmental issues. We have knowledge and power to make that change there’s nothing stopping us,” Cr Formoso said.
She has also been calling resident personally to get them on-board and wishes the council could engage with communities, schools and organisations to work their part.
“We need to be proactive working with real estate, CALD communities because some people don’t even know you’re not supposed to do that. The more I insist on this the more it can happen,” Cr Formoso said.
Register here https://www.cleanupaustraliaday.org.au/join-a-clean-up
