Litter is an unwelcome sight with many not caring about the amount of litter around our streets and roads, but there are some locals who keep their area spotless and many who ‘bin it instead’.

Macleay Landcare Network encourages and promotes responsible management of waste and hopes to help reduce litter.

But why, other than the obvious reason of minimising ugliness in our beautiful environment, would we want to reduce litter? 

Another important reason is that litter endangers wildlife and farm animals.

We have all seen footage on TV of marine animals getting tangled in rubbish such ropes, nets and other fishing equipment but animals and marine life also eat rubbish that can result in their death – a horrible and unnecessary outcome.

Much of this rubbish gets washed down our drains and into waterways and the ocean.

Gavin Hughes, Waste Strategy and Education Officer for Kempsey Shire Council, suggests that litter also lowers local pride, devalues areas and negatively affects local sense of well-being and personal/public safety.

Litter can also harbour vermin, lead to trip hazards or dangerous sharp objects, clog local street drains and increase flood risks, and lead to more littering and illegal dumping.

But how can we reduce littering?

Good options are to lead by example and encourage others not to litter.

Cleaning up other’s litter and maybe joining/creating a community clean up event to develop local pride/ community ownership of littered areas is another option.

Gavin also advised that Council recently received a $125,000 State Government NSW EPA grant to install new waste and recycling public litter bins to some of the most littered areas around Kempsey and undertake local clean-ups with the community - hopefully this will help.

Clean Up Australia Day are now supporting communities to register to run Clean Up Australia Days more often than just on the first Sunday in March now.

Any day or regular days during the year can now be registered, supported and promoted online to get more people helping to clean up more areas more often.

Clean areas do not get as littered as much as areas that look littered.

Many may still be unaware that other members of the public can report them for littering by using the State Government’s online “Hey Tosser” public reporting portal.

Fines can be issued from public reporting littering from vehicles and so we now have over 28,000 people locally that could be acting as litter police.

SO DO THE RIGHT THING – BIN IT INSTEAD.

All in all, Macleay Landcare Network encourages responsible waste management and a litter free environment.

You can help protect our wonderful environment and fauna by following some of the initiatives mentioned and by not being a “tosser”.