SSP Litter – Tangalooma EcoMarines

Litter

Facts and Figures

Litter can effect our environments in many ways. It can find its way into our waterways which can pollute our systems and eventually make its way into our oceans. 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:

0 $

Is the amount it costs Australia to clean up litter each year!

Cigarette butts are littered each year!

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!

			Litter: 
Activities & Competitions		

Landfill Legends

Up to 10 schools outside of Brisbane City Council 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!

Step 1

Meet with your EcoMarines crew and decide on a way to encourage students to join the Landfill Legends team. Here are some ideas:

Make it a competition between pairs of students – the pair who collects the most items of rubbish wins a prize (maybe house points or tuck shop voucher)
Target younger grades who like to have activities during break times

Decide when you will have regular pick-ups e.g. every two weeks or twice a term during lunch or before/after school.

Step 2

Advertise Landfill legends to recruit members! How will you do this? Maybe…

Make fun posters
Speak at assembly
Add it into the school newsletter
Go and talk directly to classes/younger grades

Step 3

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.

Step 4

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.

Step 5

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!

Is your School In Brisbane City Council?

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:

One large school/class-wide litter pick-up
Walk to school litter pick-up
Community pick-up in a local public area
Long-term litter tools loan

For more information visit the website below:

Email us to get in touch with the ‘104 or More’ team or click the ‘Register to Borrow’ Button!

School Spotlights!

Mt Maria College

Rubbish Audits

The EcoMarines at Mt Maria conducted a rubbish audit to show the school how much waste the students produced in a week. They then shared the results on assembly to encourage the community to change their behavior about litter and waste. The students then followed up this data collection after their litter and rubbish campaigns to see if changes have been made. They did! Sharing the positive news on assembly again made their school community proud of the what they achieved!

Islamic College of Brisbane (Secondary)

Bin Covers Campaign

The EcoMarines at ICB Secondary realized that their litter bins and recycling bins were being rummaged through by local bird life. This caused a lot of mess and made students use the bins less.

To combat this issue, the ambassadors fundraised and campaigned to purchase bin covers to go on top of the bins. The ambassadors proposed a budget, cost efficiency and pros/cons list and presented this to the leadership. They succeeded!

The bins were purchased and helps students place litter items in the correct bins and stops birds form rummaging through them!

Will bin covers be a good idea for your school?

Litter

Facts and Figures