For people crossing or walking around Kangaroo Point, the Story Bridge is a prominent part of the suburb’s riverside landscape. Beneath it, however, a recent low tide has revealed a less familiar sight, with submerged e-scooters exposed along the Brisbane River.
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The discovery has drawn attention to waste beneath the river’s surface and raised questions about how shared e-scooters are managed once they leave Brisbane’s streets and designated parking areas.
The scooters included models operated by Lime and Neuron, along with older devices from former provider Beam. Some were photographed in varying degrees of decay.
Scooters emerge at low tide
Ocean Crusaders, a Queensland organisation that conducts waterway clean-ups, said it had collected about 150 e-scooters from the Brisbane River near the CBD during the past year.
Its founder, Ian Thomson, said the river contained more rubbish than many people realised and suggested deeper areas could contain additional waste. The figure relates to scooters recovered by Ocean Crusaders near the CBD. It does not establish how many devices have ended up in waterways across Brisbane or how many may remain underwater.
The low tide provided a rare view of the submerged scooters around the Story Bridge, with some showing signs of deterioration. The discoveries are relevant to Kangaroo Point because the Story Bridge connects the suburb with the CBD. The riverfront is also used by pedestrians, cyclists and visitors moving between Kangaroo Point and the CBD.
The submerged devices have also become part of the clean-up work carried out along Brisbane waterways. Operators and clean-up groups may need to locate and recover scooters that enter the river.
Operators say vandalism is uncommon
Lime and Neuron have both said vandalism of their vehicles is uncommon in Brisbane. The operators did not provide tracking information or figures showing how many scooters had been written off. That makes it difficult to determine the overall number of scooters that have ended up in the river or how they got there.
Both companies have pointed to measures designed to discourage inappropriate parking and vandalism, including geofencing and no-parking areas. Their teams also retrieve devices when they are able to locate them.
Neuron has said the overwhelming majority of riders and community members use its service responsibly. Lime has highlighted shared e-scooters as a convenient transport option for getting around Brisbane.
The presence of scooters in the river does not establish that operators or ordinary riders are responsible for individual devices found there. It highlights the issue of managing shared vehicles after they leave normal parking locations.
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Brisbane’s official e-mobility information says up to 7,100 shared e-mobility devices are available to hire across the city, with Lime Network and Neuron Mobility providing the shared scheme. Parking hubs and virtual parking zones are also used to help manage where devices are picked up and left.
People who find an illegally dumped hire e-scooter or e-bike are advised to report it directly to the relevant e-mobility provider. The question now is how riders, operators and relevant authorities can prevent more shared devices from ending up in the river.
Published 18-August-2026
