Keep Australia Beautiful is Australia’s most well-known charity aimed at reducing litter and helping the environment in Australia. They had a goal: to reduce litter in Australia by at least 10% over 5 years. But with Australians dropping 8m pieces of rubbish everyday we needed to get Keep Australia Beautiful’s message heard.

After a lot of research we found one consistent, surprising fact: the only demographic group that almost litters are kids under 15.

But, the people who were in charge of fixing Autralia’s problem were suit-wearing, middle-aged professionals – the very people who were contributing to the problem So – knowing that people under 15 are the least likely to litter – we decided to put kids in charge of the problem. We created The Leading Integrated Taskforce Tackling Litter Everywhere, otherwise known as The LITTLE Committee. After a 3-month selection process, with thousands of applications and the help of formar Senator Natasha Stott-Despoja, we launched The LITTLE Committee at Australia’s Parliament House in Canberra with a 3-day summit, including a media launch where we introduced the committee to Australia. The LITTLE Committee had 50 media interviews in one day, received coverage in every state and territory including 39 press stories and 1 front page story in the first week. And within 24 hours the committee had reached 25% of the Australian population, including Australia's Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. The LITTLE Committee has put litter back on the national agenda.

We contacted every school in the country; thousands of kids applied for The LITTLE Committee. We flew around the country and interviewed candidates, and after a 3 month selection process, with the help of former Australian Senator, Natasha Stott-Despoja, the members of the committee were confirmed. Now we had to make adults take notice of and listen.

An idea as big as The LITTLE Committee needed an equally big launch. With the support of Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Senator Kate Lundy, we staged an event at Australia’s Parliament House in Canberra, called The LITTLE Summit.A parliamentary non-sitting week was chosen to maximize exposure of The LITTLE Committee. The climax of the 3-day summit was the media launch where the committee members gave dozens of media interviews.A full-page press campaign in Australia’s national newspaper during launch week cemented the high public profile of the committee.

On the day of the launch, the LITTLE Committee generated media coverage across the country. A horde of news teams clamored for interviews and The LITTLE Committee gave more than 50 media interviews that day.Within 24 hours, a quater of the population were aware of The LITTLE Committee and, within 8 weeks of the launch, The LITTLE Committee had triggered 5m media impressions.

Support of the most important Australian adults has been guaranteed. The Federal Government and all other political parties have publicly backed the committee. The Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has declared they “are the right people for the job”.

The message to adults was made loud and clear. Throughout the launch coverage consistently reported that it was adults, not kids, who were the biggest litter offenders.

For the first time in decades litter is back on the agenda. All thanks to a bunch of kids.