To provide leadership, the EPA studies the different dimensions of litter, including its impacts, the reasons why people litter and how to best prevent it. Regular research and monitoring help the EPA ensure NSW's litter laws and prevention strategies are working well, to better protect the community and the environment.
Every two years the EPA reports on the composition and quantity of litter types in sites where significant littering takes place, as required under the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997 (POEO Act) section 146D.
In 2016, the NSW Government commissioned a study into the costs of litter that estimated the direct financial outlay incurred by the community for cleaning up litter in NSW. The findings are presented in Litter Costs to the NSW Economy – a preliminary report (PDF 2.2MB).
In 2021, research was developed into the indirect costs of litter. Indirect costs arise from the impacts of litter that is not cleaned up or that escapes into the wider environment before it can be cleaned up. To maximise the benefits of the research, the study covered the indirect costs of both littering and illegal dumping, which are treated in two reports that capture the different aspects of these costs:
The EPA's litter prevention kits summarise research about littering and the behaviour behind it.
The purpose of the study is to inform policy analysis, particularly cost-benefit analysis (CBA), of government actions that could reduce litter and illegal dumping. CBA of alternative actions requires monetary estimates of the costs of litter and illegal dumping.
The focus of this paper is on the environmental costs of litter and illegal dumping in three specific environments: marine, inland waterways and terrestrial.
