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Littering Education > Infrastructure Issues > Cultural and Social Attitudes

Social and Cultural Attitudes

Social and cultural attitudes play a very important role in influencing littering behaviour, and are often given as ‘reasons’ for littering. A variety of statements were found in the research reviewed that related to people’s or society’s attitude towards littering. Being lazy, or not being bothered, were the main attitudinal reasons given for littering; many people believe that someone else will pick up any litter that they leave behind; and although people commonly believe that littering is a bad thing, they also do not think it is ‘that important or serious’.

Part of the study by Williams et al (1997) found that three quarters of the people observed littering said that littering was a ‘very important’ or ‘extremely important’ environmental issue. 75% of all respondents said it was never acceptable to litter, however, 80% of respondents had littered at some time in their lives. These findings show the contradictory nature of people’s attitudes and behaviour. Although people believe littering is wrong, this does not stop people littering in certain circumstances.

Further work on the different viewpoints that exist on littering behaviour was undertaken by the EPA (Environmental Protection Authority) of Australia. This organisation conducted focus group discussions in 2000 as the first phase in the development of the Litter Prevention Programme. The study presented a number of different mindsets regarding attitudes and behaviour to littering:

‘At one extreme there are the ‘willful arrogant’ and ‘anti-establishment’ litterers who are aware that littering is anti-social, but who have no desire or capacity to change because of peer pressure and broader social problems. At the other extreme are ‘collectors’, who do not litter and who bother to clean up other people’s litter. In between are people who litter as a matter of convenience or through ignorance. However, littering behaviour is complex and a person may litter as a ‘willful arrogant’
while with a peer group, but litter as an ‘inconvenient’ in a different social setting’

In Britain, ENCAMS (Environmental Campaigns, a charitable organisation responsible for the ‘Keep Britain Tidy’ campaign) recognised the different viewpoints that exist about littering and decided to work with the people most likely to be sympathetic to the litter problem. Their work aimed to find out why people litter even though they know it is wrong.

The target population was ‘Middle England’, ‘the hard working, medium income, lawabiding citizen’ (Gibson 2002: p.14). According to the Gibson (2002) report, this group is ‘very vocal’ about the litter problem, and ‘seemingly, very fed up’. ENCAMS invited people who believed they were ‘good citizens’ to take part in focus groups, and asked them questions, one of which was ‘have you ever dropped rubbish?’. Responses revealed that even those who consider themselves to be good citizens litter. In all responses there was a common denominator: the issue of littering was not taken seriously enough and people were entirely oblivious to the consequences of dropping rubbish and damaging the local environment. The focus groups felt that an effective approach to stop littering would be to
‘remind the public of the damage litter does’. ENCAMS now aim to win over this group, the
‘sympathisers’, who, with some encouragement, are likely to stop littering.

The Williams et al (1997) report found a lack of agreement on what actually constitutes litter. For example, these researchers found that over one third of people do not believe that organic items, such as apple cores are litter, and roughly a quarter do not think that dog droppings are litter either. However, nearly everybody agreed that bottles, cans and food wrappers were litter.

Panel discussions conducted for the New Zealand Anti-litter Council in 1975 found several social and cultural attitudes towards littering. Some reasons given by participants included:

habit - ‘once you get used to throwing something small out of the car window it is easy to throw out anything small, if it is insignificant’; deliberate action; people feel their litter is not important; the fact that other people litter; some were not aware they were littering; and some believed that in some locations littering is acceptable (e.g. a sports stadium).

Research for Sharp Hertwig’s strategy for The Washington State Department for Ecology (2001) into the reasons why people throw litter from moving vehicles found that the most common reasons given for littering cigarette butts were ‘don’t want car to smell’ and ‘don’t want ashtray mess’, followed by ‘it’s in my left hand, next to the window’, ‘I’m lazy/it’s easy’.

The most common reasons given for littering food wrappers and beverage containers were ‘lazy/easy to do’, and ‘don’t want mess/smell in my car’. It would appear that more than anything, it is convenient to throw litter from a car window, and people do not want to carry rubbish in the car because of the smell/mess.