Facts about litter
Litter is any domestic or commercial waste and any material a person might reasonably believe is refuse, debris or rubbish.
Litter can be almost any material that is disposed of incorrectly. Litter includes cigarette butts and drink bottles dropped on the ground, fast food wrappers thrown out of the car window, poorly secured material from a trailer or grass clippings swept into the gutter. Litter can also be an abandoned vehicle or an abandoned part of a vehicle.
However, litter does not include any gas, dust, smoke or material emitted or produced during, or because of, the normal operations of a building, manufacturing, mining or primary industry.
Litter in Australia
The volume of litter across Australia has increased by seven per cent over the past year. 1 Highway litter now accounts for almost half of all litter in terms of volume, and illegal dumping is a major contributor to Australia's litter problem.
Litter in Queensland
Queensland has the highest number of litter items of any Australian State or Territory.
The most littered sites in Queensland are:
- Industrial sites, which were associated with large volumes of litter and moderately large numbers of litter items.
- Highway sites, which were associated with a large estimated volume of items but only small numbers of items.
- Retail sites, which were associated with large numbers of items but only small litter volume per 1,000 m2.
As the following graphs indicate, cigarette butts make up the majority of litter items in Queensland, while plastic bags represent the highest volume litter.
Figure 1. Litter by volume and item in Queensland.
References
1 Keep Australia Beautiful, National Litter Index 2006-2007 www.kab.org.au 2007
Last updated: 23 January 2008