Tossers can be binners
An integrated approach to waste education and reducing littering
WINNER!  Litter Reduction Award - NSW Tidy Towns, 2014
The Toronto Area Sustainable Neighbourhood group wanted to improve our local shopping centre by:
  • stopping littering
  • increasing public place recycling
  • encouraging stewardship for our place
We took an integrated approach to the issue to tackle littering on a number of different fronts, to make our local shopping precinct a more amenable place to be, and to create greater awareness about issues related to over-consumption, over-packaging, and the impact of litter and plastics in our environment.

Clean ups and litter surveys
  • We started by undertaking a litter survey as part of the Keep Australia Beautiful Community Litter Grant program.  The information from the survey highlighted where the litter was coming from and helped us plan for how to impact behaviour change.
  • We also held two Eco Angel clean up events.  Once before our project implementation, and one afterwards.  Our Eco Angel survey results showed a significant reduction in litter in the area, following the implementation of our project.

Improved infrastructure
We were awarded grant funding for our project from both Keep Australia Beautiful, and the ClubGrants program (through Toronto Workers Club).  This helped us to contribute to the cost of purchasing and installing extra public place recycling and general waste bins, as well as other project costs.
  • We worked with a number of Council departments to organise the purchase, signage, and installation of the bins, as well as permission to do the works on Council premises.  It took a lot of time and effort to coordinate with Council, but eventually the bins and signs were installed!

Education and awareness
An important focus of the project was to improve education and awareness.  Partly to help people know what is recyclable, but also to make sure people knew that littering is not acceptable here.
  • We installed some signage around the area, using the consistent 'Don't Be A Tosser' campaign materials, and highlighting the fines for littering.
  • We engaged with local businesses around smoking about the problem of cigarette butt littering, and new smoking restrictions in public places.
  • On our launch day, we spoke to a lot of shoppers about our project, and handed out green bags and personal cigarette butt bins.
  • We also stencilled stormwater drains in the precinct to help people make the link between litter and where it ends up.

Improving the look and feel of the area
We also thought it was important to tidy up the area and make our shopping precinct more welcoming.
  • We engaged a local artist to design and create a mural that would appeal to younger people, and discourage any grafitti tagging in the area.  Feedback from local teenagers is that they love the mural!
  • We also cleaned up and replanted in some existing landscaped garden areas to prevent them from becoming litter traps, and to generally improve the appearance of the area.
Partnerships
Our project required strong support from and partnerships with a number of other organisations to make it successful.  Along the way we worked with:
Find out more about the Toronto Area Sustainable Neighbourhood Group