In public places like beaches and parks, littering continues to be a problem.
It’s an environmental issue, and in New Zealand ‒ where a significant driver of tourism into the country is through the promise of a 100% Pure New Zealand ‒ it’s also an economical issue (a 2001 report from the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment estimated that a lowered perception of New Zealand’s clean and green image could have a negative impact approaching $1 billion dollars).
Common touchpoints designed to prevent littering are providing rubbish bins, and also signs. When signs are used, there are a range of approaches in the messages used to prevent littering:
The Polite Request
The Direct Order 
The Demonstration Of How To Not Litter
The Social Reminder
The Threat
What would happen if instead concentrating on touchpoints that aim to prevent people from littering, touchpoints also had the aim of encouraging people to clean up – regardless of the source of the litter?
During my University years I met Gael Arnold, an amazing woman who took a lot of her own time, money and effort into organising volunteer parties to clean up litter that had washed up on the shores of islands in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf. Since then I have made an attempt to take away as much rubbish that I can hold whenever I leave a beach.
This behaviour should be actively encouraged!
What if rubbish bins were designed to also dispense plastic bags and disposable gloves that people could use to collect rubbish in an area before they leave. Perhaps these bins could be designed with cartoons or imagery that educate children about the benefits of collecting litter and encourage them to take part as well, or challenge them to collect as much litter as possible (litter treasure hunt anyone?) well maybe that’s a long reach, but kids do like games right?
A similar concept for specialised bins exists for dog owners where special dog poop collection bins are placed in areas where people walk dogs which also dispense plastic bags for dog owners to collect their dog’s waste if they’ve not brought their own bags. The message here is “you have no excuse“.
It’s true you probably wouldn’t see an overnight change in people who littered in the past to start cleaning up other peoples litter just from a well designed bin like I’ve described above. But seeing other people act is a powerful motivator. When people don’t litter there is nothing obvious to see (except a lack of litter) but observing other people actively cleaning up might prove to the type of social reminder that is needed to prevent these people from littering themselves.
New Zealand has a long running “Be A Tidy Kiwi” campaign, one of the aims over the next three years is to “Maximise use of litter bins by designing them well“. I’d love to see a trial of rubbish bins that were designed with affordances to encourage people to clean up other peoples litter.
Some people might object to the use of so much plastic (in the dispensed bags and gloves) as a proposed solution to litter. Others might argue the extra cost involved in providing the bags and gloves. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this problem.
Design for change!
Tags: Concepts, Design For Change
When I was in primary, we made a huge cutout of a rubbish monster – the mouth was where you chucked rubbish into. We had great fun with our rubbish back then!
That’s nice you have some good memories about rubbish as a child haha!
At the schools I went to litter duty was dished out as a punishment. We used to call it scab patrol, and make fun of people that had to do it. Looking back it’s a pretty nearsighted punishment because it’s associating picking up rubbish as something to avoid at all costs – not really the best message to be giving to kids :(
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Great collection of images Matthew.
There’s a great article in a book called ‘Yes! 50 scientifically ways to be Persuasive’ by Robert Cialdini and friends which is relevant. The book covers scientific studies of the impact of signage on people behaviours.
http://www.amazon.com/Yes-Scientifically-Proven-Ways-Persuasive/dp/1416570969/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239111998&sr=8-1
The book covers a study where existing signs said “Please don’t take the petrified wood from this nature reserve — soon there will be none left” which appeared near walking trails in a national park. The study involved various signs on various tracks, with specially placed pieces of petrified wood to tempt walkers. The results showed that the existing sign actually had the effect of *increasing* the amount of petrified wood being taken from the forest!
The research shows that social norms “everyone else is doing it, so I should too” is the most powerful factor available to influence people. Tell people what they should do, and show that other people, and importantly, people *just like them* do the preferred thing a lot. It really is a great book — full of brilliant insights backed up by hard scientific data. :)