Keep Australia Beautiful Week (KAB Week) is held at the end of August each year, and was developed by Keep Australia Beautiful to remind people about the simple things they can do in their daily lives to reduce the impact on the environment and encourage action.

In 2011, KAB Week will be held from Monday 22nd August to Sunday 28th August with two key themes: “Dropped on Land, Kills at Sea” and “Where does your rubbish go?” to highlight the harmful impact litter has on our waterways and wildlife.

Around 8 million items of litter enter the marine environment every single day. Around 80% of this is washed from land, with cigarette butts, food and drink wrappers and fishing gear making its way into our oceans and rivers through run-off from storm water drains, or being left on beaches and river banks.

This litter is harming and even killing our marine mammals and other wildlife through entanglement and ingestion, with at least 77 species of marine wildlife found in Australian waters being affected. 

Meanwhile, our rubbish is also forming massive floating garbage patches out to sea, one of the largest being the North Pacific Gyre, otherwise known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.  Twice the size of France and growing exponentially, this garbage patch is threatening to become one of the great ecological disasters of our time.

During KAB Week you will hear about these issues in the media and at our launch events so keep an eye out for our celebrity ambassadors and spokespeople helping to raise awareness of these issues.

In particular, you may catch Newcastle environmentalist, Tim Silverwood, talking about his voyage across the Pacific Ocean from Honolulu to Vancouver in July where he undertook research into the North Pacific Gyre. Closer to home, Ian Hutton OAM, Curator of Lord Howe Island Museum, will be raising awareness of the impacts of plastic marine debris with his findings from local research into the impact of plastic litter on local seabirds in and around Lord Howe Island.

YOU can play your part in helping reduce this avoidable environmental problem by checking out the KAB Week web pages for tips, research information, posters and template media releases, so that you can help spread the message further amongst your local community and media.