A unit of Lasting Forests evolving since March 30, 1999
A Total Forest Management Plan and Wildland Management Decision Support System
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Preventing and Controlling Littering

Extreme littering may be vandalism. It, along with vandalism and theft, can be called depreciative behaviors. Litter is misplaced solid waste, from discarded cigarette butts to abandoned autos. "Place" is important. The paper cup in a waste basket is the same cup along the roadside, but one is letter. The rusty auto in an open field is different than the same auto in a junkyard.

Litter removal on public lands costs taxpayers over $500 million a year (USFS, 1976). There have been changes and some successes but attention needs to be given to it on all wildlands. Education, persuasion, penalties and fines, and litter receptacles have had limited success.

Realizing the threats and concerns may help a few people avoid littering:

• Safety hazards (especially on highways)
• Fire hazards (houses destroyed from fires starting in litter). One third of forest fires start from trash and debris burning.
• Health hazards (especially disease vector mosquito breeding areas)
• Wild Animal hazards (shrews and moles in bottles, entanglements, strangulation, pull-tab entanglements, ingestion)
• Failure to recover energy potentials of waste and recycling of bottles

1. Clarify objectives -
   • No litter?
   • Not litter?(antecedent behavior) or pickup litter? (consequent behavior)
   • Minimum litter in a specific period?
   • Minimum cost of cleanup?
   • Specific litter types? Litter size limits? Litter item-count? Classes of litter?
   • Specific areas only?
   • Constraint-like objectives (money, time, staff, vehicles, equipment)
2. Minimizing costs can include closing the area to use.
3. Thank past users (generally) for keeping the area clean (signs and leaflets and introductory education materials)
4. Provide disposal devices (cans, etc.) near likely "toss" sites.
5. Work with local governments to provide for garbage and related pickup services to reduce spill-over problems, dumping, and to reduce local litter-picked-up disposal costs
6. Work with vendors to reduce plastic bag use, provide for and encourage proper disposal, and increase use of bio-disposable wrappers and containers.
7. Note and discourage littering based on the "pest problems" with improper disposal of the content of packages (as well as the packaging).
8. Have groups of children (age 6-12) assembled, permission gotten from parents, instructed, show potential rewards, and then return after a pre-set time to give them rewards for picking up trash, bottles, etc.
9. Rewards can be an arm patch, booklet, etc. Give rewards, not for amounts of litter collected but for participating. Let children chose from several rewards such as patches, pins, badges, bumper stickers, book covers. Others may be taking people on a nature walk, visiting a special site, see equipment ata work.
10. Promote a "Pick it up and Pack it Out" slogan for those who use the area.
11. Do not let litter get out of control. Not cleaning up and seeing litter seems to encourage others to litter.
12. Plan litter cleanups after storms and floods, reducing widespread nature-related littering that can be claimed as an excuse for personal or group littering.
13. Uniforms or symbols are useful for those instructing or requesting pick-up work.
14. Careful. Payment for pickups can produce people littering for gaining the pickup payment (invisible dye on some items can discourage this)
15. Attitudes about littering may not prevent some people from littering, so "attitude surveys" may suggest little.
16. The visibility of staff seems to reduce littering in some areas. There is need to clarify expected behavior for the visitor, the need to pick-up, the need to dispose properly. For some, knowing the cost of clean-up can prevent littering.
17. Be aware of the stadium effect, the assumption that someone will cleanup after the group leaves a site. This can be done in personal contacts, brochures, and requiring deposits at the time of application or use (as in apartment rental, an amount returned after a quick inspection showing the site is clear of litter)
18. Monitor the waste stream in gross ways to be able to evaluate the effects of techniques and practices used. The practices are cumulative; the waste stream should show a reduction in the stream after each change, not cessation. Measure , implement strategy, then measure to get the change.
19. Consider alternative uses and disposal of the waste stream (energy, salvage, composting, erosion control); alternative haulage costs.
20. Work with loggers and other crews to provide for proper disposal and pickups of oil cans, lunch wrappers, etc.
21. "Litter doesn't fly away, it just moves over" --- emphasis of efforts against sailing light- weight plastic bags and wrappers.
22. Do long-term studies - one technique may have time specific or delayed effects.
23. Continually adjust the system to achieve the objective and reduce costs

See Vandalism Management

References

Clark, R.N., J.C. Hendee, and Robert L. Burgess. 1972. The experimental control of littering. J. Env. Education 4(2): 7p.

Geller, E.S., R.A. Winett, and P.B. Everett. 1982. Litter control (Chapter 3)p. 48- 112 inPreserving the environment: new strategies for behavior change, Pergamon Press, New York

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This Web site is maintained by R. H. Giles, Jr.
Last revision July 20, 2001.