Natasha Stott Despoja is used to having to stop while her children pick up other people's litter every time they walk on the beach.
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She just wishes more adults wouldn't leave it there in the first place.
The former Australian Democrats leader has taken on the role of mentor to a new committee of children who will tackle littering in Australia head on.
Keep Australia Beautiful has formed the LITTLE committee (Leading Integrated Taskforce Tackling Litter Everywhere!) comprising 10 children aged between 9-12 from every state and territory.
Given just 1.5 per cent of the nation's litterers are under the age of 15, it seems clear that children have got the anti-littering message while adults have not.
In a national campaign, which will include national newspaper and television commercials shot in Canberra this week, the team have set an ambitious target of reducing litter across Australia by 10 per cent in the next five years, and by 20 per cent over the 10 years.
Ms Stott Despoja said she feared most Australians had ''issue fatigue'' and had become complacent about littering.
''Perhaps we thought everyone understood how damaging littering is to the environment, but now we have to go back and break through to them so they change their behaviour,'' she said.
Canberra's representative, 12-year-old Patrick Walker, is a Year 7 Lyneham High School student who is passionate about the environment and recently turned vegetarian.
He applied to be a LITTLE committee member because he wanted to make changes in the world and has given up his plan to become a zoologist with an eye to now becoming a politician.
''It's really exciting being a part of this group because we have a chance to make adults take notice of our message, to stop throwing stuff on the ground and to put it in the bin,'' he said.
Committee chair Mia Vissenjoux, 12, said 20.5 per cent of people aged between the ages of 15 and 25 litter, which was ''alarmingly terrible''.
''We're all here today because we are not going to sit by and watch people litter any more. We are going to raise the profile of this problem in every corner of Australia and investigate solutions together.''
Committee members start a one-year term this week where they will come up with some creative ways to address littering as well as creative measures to spread their message.
