Remove 47,000kg of litter out of riverway

In the last financial year (July 2021 to June 2022), more than 47,000 kilograms of litter was removed from the Georges River catchment during 1,364 clean ups, by people putting in over 9,657 hours in total as part of Georges Riverkeeper’s partnership with NSW Department of Justice Corrective Services which removes litter from the catchment before it enters the river.
It took 1,776 volunteer hours to remove 7,156 kilograms of litter from 290 river catchment sites in Canterbury Bankstown.
More than 1,405,000 kilograms of litter pollution has been removed from the Georges River catchment since 2007.
A Riverkeeper spokesperson said the amount of rubbish removed during the last financial year was less than previous financial years due to the extensive rainfall and continuous wet weather experienced in Sydney and the Covid lockdowns all hindering the clean-up efforts in the Georges River catchment – but “people may also be littering less”.
Georges Riverkeeper has been in operation for more than 40 years coordinating projects on behalf of its eight member councils who share a collective responsibility for the Georges River and advocating for better river management practices across the broader catchment.