Group determined to combat littering

You may have noticed large orange bags full of rubbish on the side of the road.

A Great Southern group is encouraging the public to stop dumping rubbish and is leaving a visual message of how much rubbish is tossed.

If You Toss It’s The Planet’s Loss is a group run by locals Jon Doust and Rhonda Appleton to create positive changes to address the problem of roadside, bushland, ocean and beach rubbish tossers. Ms Appleton said the group started six months ago to report, document and highlight the amount of rubbish in particular areas.

“We are solidly working hard to collect the plastic entering our waterways,” she said.

“Huge volumes of plastic have been collected from run-off drains and wetlands which flow into our river systems then eventually into Oyster Harbour.

“We also concentrate on our beaches and waterfronts.

“We encourage anyone to join and collect, while keeping fit and walking your dog.

“It’s a great visual, people are driving past the bags of rubbish that have come from their streets and they are seeing how much there is out there.”

Mr Doust said the time for tossing out rubbish needed to end.

“It’s gone too far; our oceans are full of plastic, our river systems are full of plastic and everywhere you walk you find pieces of plastic and rubbish, it’s disgraceful,” he said.