Ask the average person whether they drop litter and they will answer “No”. And yet we spend £1.6 million on cleaning the streets of Cambridge every year – so who is dropping litter? Anonymous surveys show that nearly half the population – 48% of us – drop litter. As litter is such a costly problem to deal with, much work has been done to get into the minds of litterers – to understand why they litter and what can be done to change their behaviour. People’s excuses for littering are complex, but litterers can be divided into groups based on their attitude:
- “I only drop biodegradable things like apple cores and bits of paper, so that’s not a problem” This group makes up 43% of litterers. They regard others who litter as thoughtless, but do not see their own littering as a problem.
- “Everybody else does it” – This group makes up 25% of litterers. Some are young people, who do not want to be the ones to use a bin and be seen as a ‘geek’ by their friends. Others are people who litter where there is already rubbish on the ground, for example at a music festival.
- “I haven’t got time to find a bin; I’m too busy” – this view has almost become the mantra of the 21st century as we all feel an increasing sense of time poverty. People in this group are most likely to be smokers, and may not even regard cigarette butts as litter, let alone go to the trouble of putting them in a bin.
- “Litter is somebody else’s problem” – many people simply don’t think about what happens to litter when they drop it, assuming that it will be dealt with by someone else. Some even use the excuse that by littering they are providing work for street sweepers.
- “Rubbish is inconvenient to carry around” – This group do feel guilty about dropping litter, and therefore go about it in a furtive manner. They drop litter when there is no-one else around, throw it out of the car window or try to conceal it under benches or in plant pots.
- “Bins are always full and food is overpackaged” – Some litter droppers blame their littering on a lack of bins or on fast food outlets and manufacturers for over-packaging food. They think littering is wrong, but it is okay to do it if there are no litter bins nearby or the bins are full.
Ultimately people litter because, however they justify the act to themselves, they believe there will be no consequences. For them it is a petty crime which is largely tolerated by society. It is time for change. For the silent majority who are affected by the thoughtless littering of the minority, the time has come to speak up, to challenge the litterers, to send out this message – the next time you think of dropping litter, the rest of us will be watching.
For more on littering behaviour, see www.encams.org
Filed under: CM issue 11 (Winter 2007), Litter, Streetscene | Tagged: , behaviour, Litter, psychology, street cleaning
[...] at 1:50 pm · Filed under Environment The British blog “Cambridge Matters” has a recent post describing the various types of litterers and their rationales for [...]
A lot of the litter I see on my way to work comes from very easily identifiable sources: the vans serving crap food on the market place at night. Not only do they contribute to the poor diet of people but the non-recyclable packaging often end up on the ground with a smear of ketchup and a stack of fries around. The coke bottle nearby most probably comes from the same source.
Let’s hope that these van are taxed accordingly by the Council…
I think these vans have to have a license from City Centre management. The Council does have a Voluntary Code of Conduct for businesses regarding litter, which sees them take on responsibility for litter around or stemming from their premises. I will see if these traders could be approached to enter the scheme.