Call to battle litter in our backyards

The Backyard Battle programme by Keep New Zealand Beautiful enlists citizen scientists to help understand New Zealand's litter problem. Photo: Supplied.

This week, iconic charity Keep New Zealand Beautiful launches Backyard Battle, a citizen science programme which aims to identify the origins of litter and to contribute to a better understanding of litter's pathway across our land.

'Litter starts out as something that we've created and used,” says Keep New Zealand Beautiful CEO Heather Saunderson. 'But if it's inappropriately disposed of, these products become litter which pollutes not only our land but also our waterways and seas, causing harm to the environment we live in, the water we drink and the ecosystems we're a part of.”

The Backyard Battle programme – named as such to recognise the battle that New Zealand faces to eliminate litter from our collective Kiwi backyard – is the second citizen science programme launched this year by Keep New Zealand Beautiful and follows a similar methodology for data collection as is used in the charity's Tier 1 National Litter Audit.

'The use of citizen science means more individual people can cover more ground and collect more data about litter.”says Heather.

'Backyard Battle uses a very similar methodology as our National Litter Audit, but instead of being conducted by qualified scientists, each survey will be conducted by passionate community members, regular people who are keen to make a difference by battling Aotearoa's litter problem.”

In 2019, Keep New Zealand Beautiful carried out a National Litter Audit - NLA - which compiled empirical data through the comprehensive physical inspection and collection of litter in a number of specific, fixed sites. The methodology was developed in consultation with Statistics New Zealand - Stats NZ, the Department of Conservation - DoC and the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) to ensure that the audit provided high quality, robust statistics and baseline data on litter across Aotearoa. Findings from the NLA have since been used to inform policy development at both a national and regional level.

"This year, Keep New Zealand Beautiful is re-running the NLA with trained scientists travelling around Aotearoa and collecting data at the same sites surveyed in 2019, which will allow us to see how things may have changed and to develop action plans accordingly," says Heather.

"However, this time we're also inviting individual contributors to join us in auditing New Zealand's litter problem through Backyard Battle, the citizen science version of the National Litter Audit."

Backyard Battle works in conjunction with Keep New Zealand Beautiful's other citizen science programme Upstream Battle, which focuses on litter in areas within 10m of a waterway. With a majority of the litter found in our waterways originating from land-based activities or being washed or blown into the water by rivers, sewage, storm water or winds, the litter we see on land poses an extreme risk to life both on land and in the water.

Schools, community groups and volunteers throughout New Zealand can conduct a Backyard Battle survey at any time of the year, in any inland location in the country. The data collected from Backyard Battle and its sister programme Upstream Battle will provide a secondary dataset to the National Litter Audit. Together they will contribute to growing our national knowledge base about the type, location and density of litter in New Zealand, and how it makes its way from the land to the ocean through our waterways.

About Keep New Zealand Beautiful

Keep New Zealand Beautiful is a not-for-profit this year celebrating 55 years of inspiring, educating and empowering the community of Aotearoa to restore, preserve and improve our climate future through active participation.

Through the ongoing delivery of their transformational educational programmes; community led initiatives; behaviour change campaigns; and robust, evidence-based research, they continue their legacy as New Zealand's most recognisable environmental organisation, dedicated not just to litter abatement, but also to the creation of a more sustainable, ecologically diverse and pollution free future for all New Zealanders. Find out more at knzb.org.nz.

To register your interest or to find out more info please visit www.knzb.org.nz , email info@knzb.org.nz or contact 0800 TIDY KIWI.

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