THE jamboree might be over, but the clean-up at Elmore Events Centre has just begun.
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Volunteers expect to spend the next two weeks pulling down portable buildings, removing tents and clearing rubbish from the site that, just last week, was home to 12,000 scouts.
Chief director of the 21st Australian Scout Jamboree Peter Mentiplay was clearly exhausted after the 10-day event.
"We can take it down a lot faster than putting it up, but it's still a very big job," Mr Mentiplay said.
"It took us six months to set it all up because we were constantly building things.
"One of the young scouts said he was a little bit sad that it was over, but he was excited to be going home, mostly for a hot bath," he laughed. "I'm the same.
"It's been a long time organising and getting it on the road, and in another 10 days I won't have any involvement in anything like it for another three years."
Mr Mentiplay said volunteer numbers had reached 300 during the event, but the clean-up would be done by only 50 people.
"There's 16,000 square meters of marquee to come down, 208 portable buildings on site, including toilets, and there are 40-odd 22,000-litre water tanks to be removed.
"We've got to pull down all the activities, pull down the buildings and clean the whole site," he said.
"We've given away tables, computers, pipe fittings, star pickets, fridges and washing machines."
Mr Mentiplay said some materials had been recycled, but a staggering 200 tonnes of rubbish would be trucked to the Eaglehawk tip.
"We recycled all our plastic bottles and wherever we could recycle, we did," he said.
"We'll probably take 200 tonnes of rubbish to the tip, and that varies from food waste to materials we used for our activities."
Mr Mentiplay said hailed the event a success despite the uncomfortable weather conditions.
"It's been very successful in that the children have really enjoyed themselves... that's the main thing."
About 250 buses were called in to take scouts home last Friday night.
The $10 million event was the eighth Australian scout jamboree held in Victoria since 1935.