About Litter
What is Litter?
Litter is any material that has been left where it is not meant to be. Frequently littered items include:
- cigarette butts
- bus tickets
- drink containers
- apple cores
- take-away food packaging
- material falling from an unsecured load
- leaves swept into the gutter
Litter is usually thought of as small items, but it also includes abandoned vehicles, household rubbish dumped on the roadside or in the bush, and furniture such as mattresses left on the street by people moving house. It even includes fish offal left behind by recreational fishers after scaling and gutting fish.
Litter Matters - But Why?
Litter is the most visible sign of pollution. It is unsightly and can cause harm to people, wildlife and our waterways. It encourages pest animals as well as the spread of germs and disease. Litter is wasteful and costly to clean up. Litter also affects the way tourists view our state.
Litter - it Lasts and it Travels
Litter takes many forms and has a range of effects. Many of the materials we casually throw away don't break down - they last in the environment for a long time. People may think that paper decomposes easily, but a parking ticket, for example, can take up to a month to decompose, depending on where it is. So, imagine the length of time it takes for a plastic soft drink bottle or a plastic industrial oil container to break down! Plastic litter can impact for hundreds (200-500) of years. Plastic is also light weight, easily windblown and it floats in water, often travelling long distances via the stormwater system to impact on our beaches. The Ocean Conservancy estimates that 59% of all marine litter is from land-based shoreline and recreational activities.
The following table shows the time it takes for some common litter items to decompose in the environment.
| Litter Item |
Time to break down |
| Glass bottles |
1 million years |
| Monofilament fishing line |
600 years |
| Plastic beverage bottles |
450 years |
| Disposable nappies |
450 years |
| Aluminium can |
80 - 200 years |
| Foam plastic cup |
50 years |
| Plastic bag |
10 - 20 years |
| Cigarette filter |
1 - 5 years |
| Source: US National Park Service; Mote Marine Lab, Sarasota, Florida |
Litter and Stormwater Quality
Litter often clogs stormwater drains, affecting water quality and impacting on those plants and animals that live in and along the waterways and coast. Certain types of litter, such as food scraps and other organic items, can contribute to algal blooms that deplete oxygen levels in the water. Litter can also degrade water quality if there are harmful chemicals associated with it. For example, cigarette butts contain many toxic chemicals that leach into the water.
Dangerous Litter
Some litter can be dangerous. Broken glass, fishhooks and bits of metal can cause serious injuries to people. Discarded lit cigarettes can cause bushfires.
Litter Costs
Litter prevention, education, collection and enforcement costs the community millions of dollars every year. For example, Australian local and State Governments spend over $200 million a year just picking up litter!
Litter has many other costs that are significant but hard to quantify in dollar terms. Examples include the social and environmental costs of degraded environments, injured wildlife, and impacts on liveability such as reduced amenity of public space, and community safety.
Case Studies and Resources on the Impacts of Littering
Fran Crowe's 46,000 Challenge: http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?base=3095
"Lake Macquarie City Council - litter in the lake program"
http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/litter/council_kit/cs/lakemacq.htm
"Plastic Debris in the World's Oceans" (2006) Greenpeace
http://oceans.greenpeace.org/en/documents-reports/plastic_ocean_report
Stormwater & litter - Clearwater information exchange
http://www.clearwater.asn.au/stormwater_infoexchange.cfm?areatopic=true&AreaID=43&TopicID=104&CategoryID=1
"The Impacts of Marine Litter" (2002) Report of the Marine Litter Task Team, Scotland
http://www.frsscotland.gov.uk/Delivery/Information_resources/information_resources_view_document.aspx?resourceId=31142&documentId=1243
http://www.oceanconservancy.org
http://www.ozcoasts.org.au/issues/litter.jsp
Litter in Tasmania
Littering continues to be a problem in Tasmania. Results from the Keep Australia Beautiful National Litter Index 2006/07 survey for Tasmania showed that the amount of litter on our streets and highways, along our beaches and in our shopping centres has increased. There's no avoiding it - litter in Tasmania has increased both by the number of items counted and by the volume estimate of litter.
Once again cigarette butts are the most commonly littered item, followed by paper. Conducted twice a year and across 76 sites in Tasmania, the Keep Australia Beautiful litter audit for 2006/07 identified plastic litter as the most voluminous material type surveyed. Plastic was also one of the most common materials in the Dirty Dozen list by count. Examples of plastic litter include take away food containers and utensils, soft drink beverage containers, plastic shopping bags and plastic bottle tops.
Keep Australia Beautiful conducts campaigns and provides information on how to prevent littering and reduce the impacts of the wastes we generate as part of our modern lifestyle. Visit the website www.kab.org.au to find out about Keep Australia Beautiful Week which runs from Monday 27th August to Sunday 2nd September 2007 and other campaigns, such as how to recycle mobile phones and printer toner cartridges.
Who Litters and How?
Littering research shows that that there are no significant gender, age or class distinctions in people's littering behaviour. Littering behaviours are influenced by a number of factors - the type of item being disposed of, whether people regard the item as litter, whether bins are available to dispose of the litter and whether we are alone or in a group or in a private or public place. (Source: www.environment.nsw.gov.au/litter/research.htm). The bottom line is that people from all walks of life litter. Preventing and reducing litter is everyone's responsibility. As individuals we can choose to 'do the right thing' and dispose of our waste appropriately.
http://www.livingthing.net.au/RC_Pub.htm
http://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/www/html/784-1-understanding-littering--binning-behaviour.asp
http://southernwaste.com.au/littering/
Social psychologists, Community Change, have done extensive research into littering and have identified a range of littering behaviours and even given nicknames to the littering behaviours. They make a clear distinction between positive and negative behaviours.
Want to know more about - the clean sweeper? The foul shooter? The trail blazer? Visit:
Changing Littering Behaviours
The complexity of littering behaviours requires that at the community level we need to work together to develop litter strategies that address a range of factors and in an integrated way.
The essential elements are education, enforcement and engineering (infrastructure). An education program alone or the issuing of fines by itself will not lead to sustainable long term changes. Likewise, the provision of infrastructure alone does not prevent litter - about 50 % of littering occurs within 8 metres of a bin. When education (information, knowledge), enforcement (penalising offenders) and engineering (making it easy and convenient) are integrated, attitude and behaviour change are more likely to occur simultaneously.
Southern Waste Strategy Authority has done much in recent years in working with Councils to address the education and engineering aspects of making it easy and convenient through the Don't Waste Tasmania and the Do the Right Thing advertising campaigns, provision of litter and butt bins and signage. The Look Who's Littering campaign which has been developed to coincide with the commencement of the new litter laws is designed to promote education and enforcement, with engineering supported by road signage on our highways and bin infrastructure in Council CBD and municipal areas. Educational campaigns that target specific littering behaviours are also an important feature of the integrated approach to changing attitudes to litter and littering behaviours. The Look Who's Littering is a phased campaign with phase one focussing on Look Who's Littering - On the Road.