Melbourne Water’s community-led Litter Action Project has wrapped up after nearly four years.
The project involved residents from Wyndham Vale conducting regular clean-ups and rubbish audits at litter hotspots and waterways in their local area, under the group name of Love Our Streets.
Other residents, schools and environmental groups from across Greater Melbourne took part in the initiative in their local areas.
Melbourne Water has estimated the economic value of the thousands of volunteer hours clocked up during the project equates to almost $237,500.
The water authority’s education and capacity building team leader, Yvonne Cabuang, said everyone who participated in the project has made a positive difference to the environment.
“In the past three and a half years, Litter Action groups have removed and recorded almost 40,000 pieces of litter, with single use soft plastic and polystyrene the most widely collected items,” Ms Cabuang said.
“This is an amazing achievement.”
She said that population growth and urbanisation means more litter is reaching waterways.
“That rubbish threatens surrounding habitat and the wildlife that live there – affecting water quality, stifling plant life and presenting as a potential choking hazard to platypus, fish and birds,” Ms Cabuang said.
In addition, she said most people do not realise that more than 90 per cent of litter that ends up in Port Phillip Bay came from rubbish dropped on suburban streets, which gets washed into stormwater drains when it rains.
The Litter Action Project was supported with a grant from the Department of Environment Land Water and Planning.
