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Littering Education > Infrastructure Issues > Rubbish Attracts Rubbish

Rubbish Attracts Rubbish

Williams et al (1997) found the ‘litter attracts more litter’ effect to be one of the recurring findings in the international literature they reviewed. They investigated this further and observed a more complex trend, that within each site there were mini-sites that were very littered and others that were not littered at all.

An example of this was one occasion when the researchers observed one person place a drink on top of a mobile garbage bin which had the lid closed. The bin itself was empty but within 20 minutes the bin lid was covered with disposable objects and people had also deposited waste on the ground around the bin. This particular example supports the theory that people are more likely to litter if there is already litter on the ground.

Pritchett and White (2006) have reported on the outcomes of focus groups held in Porirua City to inform people about the development of a Waste Education Strategy for Porirua. The key discussion topic was the reduction illegal fly tipping and dumping of rubbish.

Participants commented that when an area has been cleaned up, they are reluctant to be the first to drop rubbish there and that they thought unclean areas attract more rubbish.

Similarly, Cialdini et al (1990) found that the presence of only two pieces of litter can lead a
person to conclude that ‘everyone litters here’. They carried out an experiment in a multilevel parking building where they tucked large paper notices under windscreen wipers.

They then observed people’s littering behaviour when removing the notices. They varied the amount of existing visible litter on the floor of the car park to see whether this had an effect on the person’s subsequent behaviour, and also investigated whether, if the person observed one of the experimenters posing as a car park user reading the leaflet and then deliberately dropping it on the floor, this made them more likely to drop the leaflet on the floor of the car park themselves.

They found that subjects littered more in a littered environment than in a clean environment. This occurred to a much greater extent when they had seen the experimenter littering first – setting the ‘norm’. However, they also found that least littering occurred amongst subjects who observed prior littering into a clean environment. This seems to indicate that the effect of a clean environment – reflecting the idea that ‘somebody cares’ - has a great impact on subsequent littering behaviour.