Simple Ideas to Drastically Reduce Street Litter

Neat Streets Litter Toolkit is free to download for volunteers and councils, from the wonderful folks at Hubbub. Litter is undoubtedly one of the biggest problems in England, and this inspirational and positive toolkit is packed with case studies of research that works, to make your  town litter-free!

Litter not only makes communities ugly, but it harms children, pets and wildlife and pollutes rivers and seas. Obviously choosing reusable over disposable (and deposit return schemes would help). But meanwhile, these guys have done the research to find out how to get people throwing away less litter, and how to pick it up effectively, and not return.

The Neat Street Toolkit includes a library of case studies, along with info on why people drop litter, how to stop them, and the best inventions to keep communities litter-free.

It’s great that volunteers spend hours picking up litter and unclogging rivers full of trash etc. But disheartening if it all comes back again.

Unfortunately, we don’t live in a country like Japan (where people literally never drop litter, it’s just not the culture). Here in England you can often find binned cans and rubbish, right next to bins, even if they’re not full. Why is this?

Behaviour research by Hubbub has shown that often people drop litter, because they say there are not enough bins, others say they are full, and it’s known that if litter is already on the street, it encourages people to drop more.

The answer is not to tell people off (this won’t work). The answer is to educate people on what happens when litter is dropped (harming wildlife etc). And make bins more fun, to encourage them to use them.

It was found that ‘finger-wagging negative messaging’ actually increases litter-dropping by 10%

If all communities downloaded this toolkit, we could have a litter-free England pretty soon. Because once  councils and volunteers had cleaned up the litter, it would be unlikely to come back.

Studies show that bright and colourful bins with positive messaging work. Many people literally are unaware of how dropped tin cans, plastic bottles and cigarette butts harm the planet. And how carrying  a personal ashtray could prevent the most littered item on earth (and also prevent fires and wildfires).

People only spend around 2 seconds at a bin, so keep messages short and punchy. Studies show that circular apertures (rather than wide open bins) lead to less littering (this also helps to stop birds and foxes etc raiding bins, which keeps them safe too.

Recycling bins should always be next to general waste bins (most people will not walk around looking for the other one, they are too lazy or busy).

The Ballot Bin (reduces cigarette butt waste)

The Ballot Bin began as an experiment, and has proved very successful. People are asked questions (like which footballer do you prefer?) and deposit their rubbish (or cigarette butts) in their choice. Sounds silly, but it works as it makes dropping litter in bins fun, and communities clean up naturally.

The Tidy Roadside Campaign (reduce road litter)

Hubbub (who designed the Neat Streets Litter Toolkit) also has a campaign to reduce roadside litter, with their Tidy Roadside campaign.

Using research in Cardiff and Glasgow, Hubbub have come up with reasons why there is so much roadside litter, and how to prevent it. And roadside litter is obviously more difficult and expensive to clean up, as it has to be done by councils (it’s too dangerous for volunteers to clean on motorways).

Their research found that:

• Roadside litter happens mostly when people slow down (say at traffic lights, junctions or slip roads).
• Often roadside litter is accidental (say blowing out the window, which is why a car trash bag is such a good idea).
• Some roadside litter is unbelievably due to ‘young men wanting to keep their cars clean’. If they have fast food or cans, they simply throw them out the window, to avoid spoiling their car seats etc.
• The main types of roadside litter are cigarette butts, plastic (from food and drink packaging), and paper litter (napkins, receipts and packaging).

Based on case studies, what worked was:

• Installing bright fun signs ‘keep it till you bin it’.
• Providing bright ‘car-ready bins’ at petrol stations and roadside stops.

It was found that the bins were not enough, only litter reduced when coupled with signs explaining why litter harms, and positive messaging to get involved in litter reduction. When this was done, litter reduced significantly, especially when coupled with radio ads.

Other Ideas to Reduce Roadside Litter

If you smoke, get a personal ashtray to immediately extinguish cigarettes until you find a bin (rather than throwing them out the car window, where they fall down storm drains and go into the sea).

Carry a car trash bag in your car, to safely deposit empty bags of crisps and other litter, until you get home. Not only is this good to prevent litter, but helps birds and wildlife (they put themselves at risk, by trying to eat the litter. If that creatures dies, another creature may die going onto the road to eat it.

One farmer had a great idea. He wants fast food restaurants to put vehicle registration numbers on receipts. So if people throw fast food packaging out their car window, they receive a fine in the post, just like for speeding.

CleanupUK has a litter-picking code for highways. It wants councils to pick up litter before mowing grass verges, as otherwise all the litter and glass just gets smashed and goes into the air. National Highways are responsible for clearing over 4000 miles of motorways and trunk roads in England, you can report litter at the website.