Litter can influence our environments in many ways. It finds it’s way into our waterways which eventually lead into the ocean. When in our oceans, litter – especially plastic can turn into microplastic and be consumed by marine animals. Litter can also be eaten by land-based animals as well. Here are some facts:
The most common reasons for littering are people saying that they are “too lazy” or “there was no bin close by”. So, the best thing we can do is educate people to stop littering in the first place, however, sometimes we need to give our environments a helping hand and pick up the rubbish we find!
Up to 10 schools can join our Landfill Legends Challenge (sign-up at Ambassador Training Day or email us below). The aim of this challenge is to make picking up litter a fun and productive activity for students and in the process educate the school community about reducing litter and waste sent to landfill! You will receive one on one support throughout this challenge from an EcoMarines team member. They will even come to your school for a few pick-up sessions!
EcoMarines ambassadors can run their own ‘Clean Up Club’ with students (Landfill Legends) during lunch, before school or after school and collect data to share with EcoMarines and the rest of the school. Don’t worry, we will help you along the way!
Meet with your EcoMarines crew and decide on a way to encourage students to join the Landfill Legends team. Here are some ideas:
Decide when you will have regular pick-ups e.g. every two weeks or twice a term during lunch or before/after school.
Advertise Landfill legends to recruit members! How will you do this? Maybe…
Plan your first pick-up after you have recruited Landfill when that you can all meet up and identify the areas needing ‘cleaning’. Get all your tools e.g. gloves, bags etc. ready!
Make sure to collect data ready for step 4. Hand out the data sheet to pairs during the pick-up to fill out in order to categorise the litter items they will collect.
Remember: DATA IS IMPORTANT! Please make sure to share all data collected with the EcoMarines team.
After your first pick-up, your EcoMarines crew can use the data sheet to identify what the most common litter items were and why you think that is.
Create a presentation on assembly about your litter findings. The presentation should also educate the school about how we can reduce these litter items and the effects these items have on our environment.
Get your Landfill Legends team back together for more regular pick-up’s. Perhaps this happens once every week to two weeks. Make sure you are still collecting data at each pick-up and take notice of any reductions in the items found.
Do you need to provide more litter education to the school if no reductions are found? How can you do this?
Do you see reductions? Great! report back to your school and congratulate them on their progress!
You can utilise the BCC ‘104 or More’ team to help with providing litter tools for your school! These litter tools include bags for litter collection and litter pickers. The ‘104 or More’ team is committed to litter education by encouraging everyone to pick up two pieces of litter a week for a year. This would result in 104 pieces of litter out of the local environment each year.
Your Litter Legends team can borrow these tools for:
Email us to get in touch with the ‘104 or More’ team or click the ‘Register to Borrow’ Button!
The EcoMarines and Support Crew from Wondall Heights incorporated clean-ups into their year 6 curriculum. They hosted a create your own litter pick up tool/stick compeition. Students designed their pick up stick from different materials and the winners won a prize! This way, they got many students to join in a litter clean up as well. This is a great idea if you are not part of the Brisbane City Council Region!
The EcoMarines of Miami State School started a local community rubbish pick-up focusing on a local park which they clean up on a monthly basis.
During every clean up they collect more than 10 bin bags worth of litter!
