CCS Litter Work Teams - 2026 Tidy Towns Litter Finalist
Every bag of litter collected by Brimbank and Banyule's Litter Work Teams does two jobs at once: it cleans a park, and it gives someone completing a Community Work order a genuine, visible way to give back.
The partnership between the Department of Justice and Community Safety and both councils began in 2025, adding dedicated litter collection across parks, activity centres and known hotspots, work designed to complement council cleansing services rather than replace them. Supervised by experienced Community Work Field Officers, participants have collected an estimated 51,280 litres of litter across the past financial year, an average of 10 bags per deployment, while also safely removing hazardous waste like discarded syringes and gas canisters.
What started as one weekly team in Brimbank has already expanded to two, a sign of how much confidence councils developed in the model early on. For participants, many of whom live locally, the work carries an extra weight: they're not just fulfilling a court order, they're visibly improving the suburb they call home.
The lesson from both councils: environmental restoration and rehabilitation aren't competing goals. Done well, they reinforce each other.
The X-factor is that rare thing, a program that measurably helps the environment and the people doing the work, in the same afternoon.
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