To make a litter report, go to the Report Rubbish website.
What is Litter?
Litter is material that is deposited in the environment in a way that creates disorder.
Frequently littered items include:
Litter can also include:
balloons (see EPA information on balloon releases)
food scraps
household rubbish
abandoned vehicles
construction or demolition equipment
garden clippings
furniture
material falling from an unsecured load
It is any item that finds its way into the environment which should not be there.
Materials left next to rubbish bins or skips are litter. People with good intentions also leave items outside full charity bins, but this is also littering.
It can be large or small in quantity, from a single item to large scale illegal dumping.
Litter in Tasmania
The Tasmanian Government has commissioned statewide litter surveys from 2023 to 2026. A total of 24 sites are being surveyed on a biannual basis (December and May). The sites are spread across four local government areas of varying socio-economic profiles. Two are in the Greater Hobart Region, one is in the Greater Launceston Region, and one is in the North-West Region.
Using the Australian littering Measure (AusLM), sites are classified into six different site type categories - residential, retail and industrial areas, recreational parks, beaches and main roads.
Some of the results from the Annual Litter Survey 2024-2025 show that:
Plastic (food and non-food packaging, plus fragments) made up 45% of items counted, with paper/card (packages and boxes) making up 19% of items counted. Cigarette butts and filters made up 16% of littered items. These are the most dominant litter streams across all types of sites, collectively making up 80% of the litter.
Plastic food and beverage containers combined make up the greatest volume of litter.
Single use plastics made up 19% of all litter items counted. There was a decrease in single use plastic items by 24%, or a 37% volume, since the 2023-24 survey. This may reflect businesses phasing out items which are earmarked to be banned. The Tasmanian Government has committed to phasing out the sale and supply of select problematic and single-use plastics.
Roads are by far the most littered places followed by residential, industrial and retail areas. Parks and beaches are the least littered, probably due to citizen and council cleanups.
Tasmania’s Container Refund Scheme Recycle Rewards was launched on 1 May 2025, between the December 2024 and May 2025 litter surveys. An encouraging early sign was that there was a reduction of eligible beverage containers by 30%. This could stem from behavioural changes induced by the scheme, for example, people storing containers ahead of the scheme (rather than littering) and/or retrieving litter for the ten-cent refund.
Results from previous litter surveys in Tasmania are available in the Annual Litter Survey document:
Why is litter so bad?
Litter is pollution and can harm people, wildlife and our waterways. Littered items can encourage pests as well as the spread of germs and disease. It can also degrade water quality if there are harmful chemicals associated with it. Litter is wasteful and costly to clean-up. Litter also affects the way visitors and locals view our State.
People have become increasingly concerned about litter in the ocean, particularly plastic.
Animals and birds can be entangled in plastic, such as rope, fishing line and the strings attached to balloons. This can:
disrupt their feeding
restrict movement
increase vulnerability to predators
cause restriction that results in infection or loss of limbs
decrease their hunting ability and/or cause the animals to drown
In the marine environment, animals and birds can also ingest plastic and balloons, mistaking them for food, with devastating impacts.
Plastic can enter the food web and even microscopic zooplankton have been observed (under a microscope) eating plastic.
Most (80%) of the litter in the ocean comes from the land including:
The remaining sources come from fishing vessels, offshore platforms and vessels.
Litter on the land can arise from people who neglect to dispose of their waste in rubbish bins. Windblown litter can arise from landfill sites and waste transfer stations, and if people do not secure their waste during transport.
Litter prevention, education, collection and enforcement costs the community millions of dollars every year. Discarded lit cigarettes can cause bushfires, with huge environmental, community, personal and financial toll.
Litter also has many other costs that are hard to measure and see, such as wildlife that are injured or die, reduced amenity and a reduction in community safety eg from broken glass.
How can I help to reduce litter?
Reducing and preventing littering and dumping is everyone's responsibility.
Information on other Tasmanian Government initiatives can be found on our website, including the introduction of the Container Refund Scheme, and work on phasing-out several problematic single use plastics types by 2025.
Other Tasmanian initiatives can be found on their websites:
Keep Australia Beautiful conducts the Sustainable Communities – Tidy Towns Awards every year in Tasmania, to celebrate community sustainability projects, including litter reduction. KAB also conducts a Sustainable Schools Grants program annually.
Clean Up Australia hosts clean-up events every year, in hundreds of locations around Australia.
AUSMAP is a nationwide citizen science initiative, surveying Australian beaches for microplastic pollution. By understanding plastic pollution, this may help find the sources of plastic pollution.
Tangaroa Blue is a nationwide database on beach litter, which people can participate in when they are doing a beach clean-up.
Take 3 for the Sea is a campaign which encourages people to pick up litter whenever they are at the beach.
Tasmanians can also get involved with the Great South West Clean-Up, where thousands of pieces of litter are collected annually in remote South West Tasmania.