Less Mess

Less Mess was our first major program - an initiative BCEC created in 2024 and delivered with the support of a Keep Australia Beautiful WA Community Litter Grant. Running from September 2024 to May 2025, it set out to do two things at once: clean up litter across the City of Belmont, and bring neighbours together while doing it. The City does a great job maintaining its parks and gardens, but public open spaces still attract litter - especially along the river - where it can wash into one of Western Australia’s most significant waterways.

At the heart of Less Mess were community-led clean-ups. Rather than running everything ourselves, we encouraged residents to pick a spot that mattered to them, gather a few neighbours, and spend an hour making it better - sharing before-and-after photos on our Facebook page. Our committee modelled the whole process first, kicking off the program with a launch clean-up along the river foreshore, then supporting locals to run their own events, spread right across Belmont’s suburbs.

Alongside the neighbourhood clean-ups, Less Mess included a “Say ‘Yes’ to Less Mess” foreshore clean-up, a visit for secondary students to Optus Stadium to see how a major venue manages waste - and to tackle river litter left after big events - and a Zero Waste = Less Mess community breakfast that brought together local MPs, key stakeholders and students to reflect on what we’d achieved together. It was through advocacy from Cassie Rowe’s office that BCEC gained access to Optus Stadium for this part of the program.

We also worked with primary schools on the “Bin There” art project, where students turned collected litter into sculptures. Their work was exhibited at Ruth Faulkner Library, giving young people a creative way to think about waste and a public platform to share their message with the wider community.

In just six months, Less Mess coordinated eight community clean-ups, collected more than 100 bags of litter, registered more than 20 volunteers, and connected with over 100 students across the City of Belmont - reducing litter, strengthening the connections between neighbours, and building BCEC’s capacity and profile as an active local environmental group. While the funded program has wrapped up, the spirit of Less Mess continues, we’ll keep running and supporting clean-ups wherever they’re needed. Our sincere thanks to Keep Australia Beautiful WA, the City of Belmont, Optus Stadium, our participating schools, and every volunteer who rolled up their sleeves.

Funded by

This project was supported by funding from the Western Australian Government’s Community Litter Grants program, administered by Keep Australia Beautiful WA.