Cost of Litter In Australia.
Thank you for your amazing blog.
It is heartening that very informed others are attempting to bring about change in the face of indifference and ignorance.
It is imperative that a thorough investigation be carried out on the cost of litter in Australia. The amount of litter needs to be measured more scientifically and accurately.
Too many manufacturers are focused only on their profits and are not accepting responsibility for the ‘end life’ of their products packaging. Better material choices and less of it (throw away material) is required. Better recycling systems and opportunities need to be offered readily and conveniently.
Government legislation and manufacturing innovation and compliance need to be strengthened. These failings though galling, are only a part of the problem.
As you mentioned, the cost of cleaning up visible litter is considerable, as are the ongoing environmental costs to both the man- made and natural environments.
I would like to add the social cost of litter to our tolerance and understanding and respect of others when we are subjected to the visible result of anti social behaviour in the form of litter daily.
What price do you put on a negative psychological impact that results from a blatant lack of respect for others and for the environment?
Across Australia, schoolyards are the breeding ground for the takeaway and throw away society. You need only visit one of these centres of learning to see the losing battle with litter and littering and to hear how each school is struggling to deal with the issue. Why is this so? Clearly more needs to be done at a social/educational level, and done in a more significant and meaningful way.
What examples are we setting in our society? The prevention of littering in the first place is really the ideal. Apparently, reason that the majority of people litter is because they are lazy or ignorant or both. Litter and littering will never be prevented/ kept to an absolute minimum by single ‘focus days’. The prevention of litter is a silent, life- long pledge that needs to be taken by the overwhelming majority of Australians at every stage of a products consumption and subsequent disposal.

Aida Tebbutt

I have just completed the online survey. It was very difficult to choose 3 products that should be a priority for government intervention. All of the options mentioned appear to be of a concern and need to be addressed and prevented. However, I do not have an informed position to know which of the products mentioned in the survey are causing the most damage. The majority of the visible plastic on my local beach, which is Shelly Beach on the NSW Central Coast, and along the roadsides and nature reserves in my area, are plastics from a huge variety of takeaway food and snack food packaging, a huge variety of plastic bags and cigarette butts. It would appear that most of this is from littering. Apparently we already have the Australian Packaging Covenant (APC) which is supposed to ‘provide a sustainable packaging initiative which aims to change the culture of business to design more sustainable packaging, increase recycling rates and reduce packaging litter’ etc. Clearly then this is woefully inadequate. How is the effectiveness of the covenant being assessed? The government needs to do much more here. What is not being realistically addressed is the end cycle of many products. (Even though this is a requirement of the packaging covenant). The sheer amount of packaging that is non bio-degradable for single use products is incomprehensible. Biodegradable materials would have to be a minimum requirement for all of these products as much of it is littered and therefore not recycled. This is so evident but manufacturers are not taking the required responsibility. This needs to be addressed. Why do companies need to be shamed by environmental lobby groups to change their practices? How is it acceptable for industry to adopt this irresponsible packaging model? Minimising the environmental impact of packaging needs to be front and foremost when manufacturers choose their packaging, before sale to the consumer. Trying to clean up after the harmful material has been released into the environment, whilst necessary, is totally inadequate and indeed impossible. I think it is offensive that our rates/taxes etc. are used to clean up after industries that have profited from environmentally unacceptable plastic and plastic packaging choices.