The psychology of littering both fascinates and disturbs me, so this is likely the first of many posts about peoples’ behavior regarding waste. The photo on the left shows two of the many clearly-marked rubbish and recycling bins situated around Bondi Beach. Despite the presence of these bins, there are still heaps of bottles, cigarette butts, napkins, and other rubbish that wind up scattered all over the beach…and eventually wind up in the ocean. I volunteer to help clean up Bondi with Responsible Runners each Sunday and we are always shocked by how much we can collect in just 30 minutes.
So…What makes people litter? There are many factors that influence littering behavior: culture, education, law/policy, social & situational context, the designed environment, etc. These factors vary significantly from country to country, so I’ll focus on Australia for this post. According to the world’s largest study of littering behavior, “Understanding Littering Behaviour in Australia” prepared by Community Change Consultants for the Beverage Industry Environment Council, the main reasons people litter are:
- lazy or could not be bothered (35%)
- no bin being nearby (19%)
- habit and forgetfulness (14%)
- the inconvenience of continuing to hold on to the waste material (14%)
- there was no ashtray available (10%)
Overall, peoples’ attitude toward littering is negative and they feel guilty for doing it. However, the litterers clearly don’t feel guilty enough to bother to find a bin, and 25% of them think that litter is mainly the local council’s responsibility. Also, most litter was observed to occur within 5 meters from a bin, so there goes the excuse of not having a bin nearby. So, what can you do? These are just a few of the many intriguing insights that the Community Change Consultants uncovered during their extensive studies. You can download the report and other Littering Behaviour Studies at the Australia Food & Grocery Council website. It’s definitely worth a browse.
A key take-away here is that the ins and outs of littering behavior are very complex. It’s not clear how (if it’s even possible) to design a fool-proof environment to completely prevent littering, although a variety tactics have been tried: anti-littering signage, clearly-marked rubbish and recycling bins of various designs, stricter littering policies, etc. From the study, it seems like implementing a greater variety of these tactics in one area has the best result, but the overall impact on littering is still not very significant. Still, just throwing out every tactic we can think of isn’t a good solution either. Rather, each environment needs to be designed with intent, based on user observation and testing, because it isn’t until we observe our products in use that we uncover the unexpected consequences of our design choices. (This is why designers always follow an iterative design process!) Here is an example of one of the study’s surprising observations:
“On one occasion a mobile garbage bin lid was closed by one person to rest a drink on top and within the next twenty minutes not only was the bin lid covered with disposable objects but people then deposited their waste around the bin, on the ground. The most interesting aspect of this observation was that the bin remained empty while waste piled up on top of its lid, although other bins were within 6 metres of the one with the closed lid.” (Understanding Littering Behaviour in Australia, p58)
Clearly, bin design affects behavior. You can change the size of bin opening, the presence of lid or ashtray, etc. but until you watch people using it, you won’t really know how your design is going to work in every situation.
It’s going to be a long, iterative process of designing environment, education, product, and policy to really reduce littering. If you don’t want to wait that long, then do what I do – pick it up and toss it properly yourself!
nudge green 