It’s important to remember that litter is not only dropped by one section of the community, no-one can say that 15 to 23-year-old males are the only crowd that litter. We need to be looking at lots of strategies, plenty of options; it’s crucial that we keep our minds open when it comes to dealing with litter.
Over the past ten months, I’ve been posting content and ideas here to help you deal with litter, I’m happy to provide these articles, but I’m mindful that they are not the only way you could be approaching litter.
3 + 6 = 9, but so does 5 + 4. There are multiple ways to look at all things litter, and I encourage you to have your eyes open and think laterally. Perhaps the best model you could be adopting is to have your finger in multiple pies. Jump into data collection and analysis, and maybe some citizen science will work in your community. Maybe your residents just want to roll up the sleeves and do clean-ups.
Bigger bins are not always the answer.
The way you do or have done things is not the only way to do them. Whether you are managing a litter program for a whole state or just running your little clean-up near your house, keep an open mind. By looking at multiple programs, strategies and techniques, you can identify the little bits of gold hidden in them.
The job of the decision maker is not to sit on their hands and wait for zero litter, it’s to research, innovate, test, trial and refine until you have a range of actions and activities that are reducing litter.
Staying on-top of what you already have is important
Even though I design and sell litter bins, I wouldn’t suggest that anyone put all their eggs into bins alone. And I firmly believe that no organisation, council or private sector can eliminate litter on their own.
Litter is best managed as a team, access to ideas and strategies is fantastic, but the most important decisions are based around spreading out your efforts to ensure you are dealing with different types of litter, various parts of your community and working with as big a range of people as possible.
As with everything posted here please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, paul@wasteadspace.com.au