The dirty truth is that each year, over 25,000 tonnes of litter is tossed in NSW alone, harming our natural environments, wildlife and making our spaces less healthy. Cleaning up litter also costs taxpayers a lot of money.

In order to discourage littering behaviour, the NSW Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) encourages the community to digitally report littering from vehicles. Good reports from citizens help protect and maintain our environment by enforcing the law through a fines strategy, stinging litterers with fines from $250.

The EPA recently engaged The Customer Experience Company (CEC) to redesign the 'Report a Tosser' digital experience to make it easier for reporters to successfully lodge a high-quality report. As proud advocates for the environment ourselves, we were humbled to have the opportunity to support the environment at our doorstep in NSW.

The existing 'Report a Tosser' digital experience was outdated, full of friction and caused much frustration. Many reporters would give up and abandon their submission.

With the NSW government increasingly embracing customer-centricity, the EPA was ready for change. They had a clear vision to design something that was not only easy to use, but would encourage people to report every time they observed littering from vehicles.

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Through empathetic research we sought to understand what was stopping reporters from completing their reports.

With the reporter's context, behaviours and needs in mind, we redesigned a responsive digital reporting platform that cleared the way for reporters to provide high-quality information as quickly as possible, and also feel rewarded for their contribution to the environment.

Thanks to the EPA's clear vision, digital standards and empathy for customers, we were able to find quick and pragmatic solutions. The EPA was able to quickly build a reporting system with an intuitive front-end and streamlined back-end. A better user-experience, analytics and capabilities for follow-up communication means the EPA can create a smooth and satisfying experience for their community of reporters.

"I really appreciated how CEC worked in a lean and agile way to get things done quickly. It was extremely valuable for us to understand our reporter's mindsets, and seeing them enjoying using the prototype gave us great ideas of how to make the whole experience better."

Alice Morgan: Report a Tosser platform product owner

The environment is important to all of us, and we were so thankful to be able to make an impact together with the NSW Environmental Protection Authority.

To check out the Report a Tosser platform yourself, follow the link here to make a report.

If you have any questions, or if we can help you redesign your digital experience, get in touch by clicking the button below.