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Home>Garbage and Recycling>A strategy for dealing with litter
Litter was identified in the Cardinia Shire Council Waste Management Strategy 200509 as an issue requiring its own strategy. Litter was also identified in the Cardinia Shire Council Stormwater Management Plan 2002 as one of the key threats to stormwater quality in the municipality.
Following a six-week public consultation period, Council adopted the Litter Strategy 20082011 on Monday 18 August. A copy of this strategy is available for download at the base of this page.
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| The environmental impacts of litter occur both in waterways and on dry land. In waterways, this includes causing potential harm to aquatic wildlife and degrading waterways. Litter in this system also has the potential to cause localised flooding. On dry land litter can harm wildlife and domestic animals. They may be struck by passing vehicles while scavenging by roadsides for discarded food waste, or they may ingest litter mistaking it for food. Littered food waste poses the further problem of providing a food source for pests such as rats, pigeons, stray dogs and cats, threatening the viability of native wildlife through competition and the spread of disease. Cigarette butts can leach up to 4,000 toxins on contact with water, including cadmium, lead and arsenic. Litter such as broken glass and syringes pose a health hazard to all.
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| Litter has social impacts as well. It is internationally recognised as having links to other anti-social behaviours, such as graffiti and property destruction. Surveys consistently show that most people feel littering is an important environmental issue, and yet people still litter. The community expects governments to take a lead role in preventing litter and also in cleaning up when it does occur.
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| Litter is a sign of a wasteful society representing a financial loss in materials that could otherwise have been recycled or reused. A clean environment provides a safer habitat for birds and animals, and feels safer to its residents. Littering behaviour studies have found that generally people litter where they already see litter, so littering becomes an accumulative problem. The presence of litter makes people feel unsafe in their communities and people see areas that are littered as areas that are uncared for and no-ones responsibility.
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| Litter also represents a financial cost to Council. In the 200809 budget the total cost of cleansing comes to $900,000 overall. Of this $124,000 is budgeted for path sweeping, $295, 057 for street sweeping, $303,987 for litter bin collection and $34,902 for the removal of dumped rubbish.
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| Key issues |
 | illegally dumped rubbish | | cigarette butt litter | | construction and demolition litter | | commercial and industrial litter | | litter on roadsides, schools, parks and gardens | | dog excrement
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| How to report people littering from a car | | Click on the link to visit the Environment Protection Authority's web page on Reporting litter from a car, to find out how to report people littering from their vehicles.
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