Litter

Litter is a form of environmental pollution that is very easy to see around us. We sometimes see it on the roadside, in the school playground or in the park. It is anything that is put where it is not meant to be, like a chocolate bar wrapper left on the ground in the shopping centre. Litter is chip packets and drink bottles left on the ground. It is an apple thrown out of the car window, a load that has not been secured properly on the back of a trailer, and the grass clippings that you sweep into the gutter.

Litter can look ugly and can cause harm to things around us. People can get cut on glass and metal. It is also dangerous to wildlife that can be poisoned, choked or strangled. It encourages pest animals such as rats, mice and seagulls as well as the spread of germs.

We can often see unsightly collections of plastic bags and wrappers in the branches of trees and shrubs along our urban creeks after heavy rains. All that litter becomes highly visible when deposited by flood waters in the higher branches.

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