Speaker 1 – S1 (Naomi Dart, Waterwatch Coordinator)

Speaker 2 – S2 (Shivesh Prasad, Lynbrook Primary School)

Speaker 3 – S3 (Ava Trounson, Lynbrook Primary School)

Speaker 4 – S4 (Alex Brewer, Lynbrook Primary School)

Speaker 5 – S5 (Elaine Boucher, Blackburn Lake Sanctuary Advisory Committee)

Speaker 6 – S6 (Anne Payne, Blackburn Lake Sanctuary Advisory Committee)

[Music] [on-screen text: Litter Action, Melbourne Water logo]

[music] [transition screen] [image of littered cigarette butts] [on-screen text: The most commonly found litter item in Victoria is cigarette butts]

[music] [transition screen] [image of suburban street with rubbish bin and passing car] [on-screen text: The average plastic bag is used for about 12 minutes but never decomposes.  It just breaks up into smaller and smaller toxic pieces.]

[music] [transition screen] [image of people walking in suburban street in front of a storm water drain] [on-screen text: 95% of litter on our beaches comes from suburban streets through the storm water system.]

 [music][transition screen]

>>S1: The Litter Action Program is a 3 year project that aims to target litter hotspots right across Melbourne by stopping litter at the source. The program encourages and supports volunteer community groups to monitor litter in or around their local waterways.  We then create Source Reduction Action Plans based on the data gathered to reduce key litter items from entering the stormwater system and getting into our waterways and Port Phillip Bay.

>>S2: The project we’ve been working on, we’ve done regular rubbish audits along the creek here and we’ve been figuring out where the rubbish is coming from and how it keeps getting into the creek.

>>S3: We’ve found that most of the rubbish is coming from our school.  It is either being dropped or blown into the creek. So now we’re trying to work out how to stop it getting out of our school in the first place.

>>S4: It gets into creeks and rivers and it can harm the animals which live there.  We could put more bins in, encourage students to pick up more rubbish, we could introduce more ‘nude food’ days, but you’ll have to come back to see what we’ve come up with.

[music][transition screen]

>>S5: Blackburn Lake Sanctuary is one of the few remaining significant areas of natural bushland reserve in Melbourne.  As a sanctuary it’s home to many birds and animals and it’s regarded as one of the most significant bird refuges in metropolitan Melbourne. The lake is actually fed by stormwater and that drains from quite an extensive surrounding area, it’s about 240 hectares, so that carries pollutants and litter and it all ends up down here at the lake.   If it drains from the lake,  it moves into Gardiners Creek, and flows down to the Yarra River and then out into Port Phillip Bay.

>>S6: The project will allow us to trace the source of litter that’s coming into the sanctuary back to where it’s coming from.  We’ve been conducting audits since January and in our audits polystyrene has been identified as a major source of litter in the sanctuary.  We’re concerned that polystyrene is often eaten by our water birds.  The project’s giving us the opportunity to identify the source and do something about it.

[music] [on-screen text: Special thanks to Lynbrook Primary School & Blackburn Lake Sanctuary Advisory Committee]

>>S1: If you’d like to know more about the Community Based Litter Action Program and to find out how you can get involved, check out the Melbourne Water website or send us an email.

[on-screen text: For more information visit mebournewater.com.au, [email protected]]

[on-screen text: Victoria State Government logo]

[on-screen text: Melbourne Water logo)