Design a plan
EPA Citizen Science Program
The results are in! Let’s see how much litter is at your school and then come up with a plan to eliminate litter once and for all.
Your Map
Here is a summary of the results from your school’s waste survey:
Every year ‘Keep Australia Beautiful’ conducts waste surveys to see how much litter there is across Australia. Every survey calculates a National Litter Index which shows how much litter there is for a given area. This is calculated in items/1000 square metres and volume of litter/1000 square metres.
The litter density at your school is 47.9 items/1000 square metres. You can compare this to the Victorian National Litter Index which is 25 items/1000 square metres, and the national average which is 49 items/1000 square metres.
The litter volume at your school is 1282 Litres/1000 square metres. You can compare this to the Victorian National Litter volume which is 2.7 Litres/1000 square metres, and the national average which is 5.7 Litres/1000 square metres.
How does your school compare? Is it more or less than these numbers?
Which types of waste were most common?
From your survey, you found a total of 520 littered plastic items outside at your school. You also found 309 pieces of non-plastic litter. That means that overall, there was a total of 829 items littered at your school.
Where is the waste located?
This graph shows which locations have the most litter. It also shows the types of litter found in each location. Do you notice any patterns? Which type of litter is most common at your school? Can you identify which area has the most litter?
The raw data you collected
This data is a table of the raw results you collected in your survey. These numbers might be useful in your analysis!
| Location | Soft Plastic | Hard Plastic | Microplastic | Non-Plastic | Area | Volume |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Location 1 | 0 | 38 | 35 | 90 | 50 | 316 |
| Location 2 | 56 | 46 | 79 | 51 | 25 | 439 |
| Location 3 | 15 | 84 | 32 | 74 | 42 | 164 |
| Location 4 | 52 | 40 | 43 | 94 | 12 | 363 |
Design your plan!
Now we know how much litter there is at your school it’s time to come up with a plan! Our goal is to completely eliminate outdoor litter – do you accept the challenge?!
Brainstorm ideas with your class for how you could reduce litter and narrow your ideas down to 3 main actions. Consider the following:
- Where is most litter found at your school?
- What types of litter are most common? How could you reduce this type of litter?
- Which types of litter at your school do you think are most dangerous to marine life?
- Could you use existing resources (e.g. bins) and move them around to be more effective?
Here are some links with ideas that might help you get started.
Cool Australia: Clean Up Australia