Council’s new Litter and Illegal Dumping Prevention Strategy has a target of reducing littered items by 40 percent over the next five years.
The Strategy, which is on public exhibition, has been drafted with extensive feedback from key community organisations and feedback from interested residents and businesses.
Jordyn de Boer, from Council’s Resource Recovery team, said litter and illegal dumping affect everyone and everything.
“It costs Council around $1.4 million a year to clean up litter and ultimately it’s our residents who bear this financial burden,” Ms de Boer said.
“Litter and waste in our environment not only look terrible, but have a detrimental impact on wildlife, marine life and our bush.
“As an organisation and a community, we need to aim high when it comes to tackling litter and illegal dumping and I am confident we can meet the target of a 40 percent reduction by 2029,” she said.
The Litter and Illegal Dumping Strategy takes a broad approach across all aspects of the Byron Shire including:
- Education, awareness and engagement
- Regulation and enforcement
- Infrastructure (e.g., bins), services and clean-up
- Controlling the source of litter
- Monitoring, evaluation and research.
The closing date for public submissions is 19 May 2024.
