Perhaps this may sound a little strange at first, but please bear with, and you may gain a new perspective for looking at the litter. Over the past several years I’ve developed a way of seeing litter as just one component of a much bigger picture. Including the people who carry it, the spaces they are in, infrastructure, and then the litter itself.

Think of it like going to the Formula 1 and waiting for all the cars to be back in the transport loading area after the race; they are all together getting ready to be shipped off to the next event. – Well, that’s a similar thing when you go out and look at the litter on the ground, you’ve missed all the action. What we will be talking about here today is the same concept, watch the people, watch where and how they are moving and what it is they are carrying.

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The first recommendation is not to get too alarmed or reactive to little bits of litter. (I know your Mayor or states Premier may not like that short term, but you will see them triumphal with the long term results) Developing large scale and long term improvements will come from looking at the big picture, then designing large, robust and sustainable solutions.

This blog is not recommending ignoring the little bits of litter. Ideally, you will start seeing them as part of a much larger picture of people, places, and litter. What we are trying to achieve here is to start seeing items before them becoming litter, this is a step towards identifying the origin and routes that your local litter travels.

To get started the first thing to look for is items of potential litter in people’s hands as they move about in public spaces. These observations can help you understand pedestrians, and you will start seeing opportunities for managing local litter.

We are looking for;

• Where they are moving, (footpaths, park walkways, cycle/walking tracks, etc.)
• How they move through spaces, (As a group, as family’s, business, recreational, etc.)
• What they are carrying, (work materials, digital/phones, beverages, food packaged, food open)
• Where are they consuming, (Is this dedicated seating, parks, cafes or outdoor dining, walking, etc.)
• How, where and when are they disposing of litter in public, (Personal observations are a significant component here but also include litter observations)

Now these observations are just that, watching people and places, you will start to develop a feel for numbers of pedestrians and what sort of needs they may generate. You will start understanding spaces when you know what elements they have in them and how people are moving through them.

No need to record any of these observations yet, this is people watching 101.

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One of the unusual pedestrian behaviours that have been emerging is the changing habits of smokers in public places. By 2010 most states and territories had some form of legislation that was restricting smokers behaviours in public areas. Then over time as licensed venues introduced the ‘designated outdoor smoking area’ smokers have become more and more accustomed to smoking were they had been instructed to. In part, this has led to the public place habits of smokers changing. In the past, it was common to see people walking with a lit cigarette, today that behaviour could be considered almost rare.

The changing habits of smokers are not the only thing we will be looking for. Let’s get you started by observing some pedestrians in your parks or on your footpaths and have a look at what they are carrying as they move about public spaces. Hopefully, this will start to give you a quick snapshot of some behaviours typical of your pedestrians. To get an accurate spread of people’s actions it’s best to conduct these observational surveys three times in one day, but don’t be afraid just to do this once and test the theory, have a look for yourself.

To start with we will be seeking to observe 100 people looking at six specific observations.  If you wanted to apply this to a smaller area, just scale everything down, 50 or even 25 individuals with the same six observations. As with most of my strategy, you shouldn’t need to sit and spend hours to create an understanding. Once you’ve started your observations and have an idea of what you’re looking at these observations can be applied anywhere, anytime.

Just a quick reminder that you should try and read,” Understanding Litter, S-A-O-I-E” session here on the blog. It’s designed to help develop the way you look at the litter, so you will be better informed on what your council will need to do to address your particular litter issues. That system is a little more in depth; this posting is to bringing you up to speed on identifying the origin, the O in the S-A-O-I-E.

There are a few ways to conduct these observations, the old clipboard with a printed spreadsheet works, setting up a template in Excel online is also very easy. I’ve found it simple to use a tally app simple app; that is perfect for these sorts of observations and much more. One I’m using at the moment is My CountR Pro, and for a couple of dollars from the app store it’s a must have. I know it’s available in the App Store, sorry can’t speak for its Android availability.

Now back to your observations, firstly what you will be looking for?

Observe 100 pedestrians passing in any direction in a park or on a footpath.

•      Everybody with nothing makes up your 1st count
•      Count those with a lit cigarette (walking not stationary)
•      Count those with a beverage container
•      Count those with food in packaging
•      Count those consuming food as they walk
•      Count those with something else in their hand (phone, laptop, other)

Here we are watching people move about public footpaths, understanding litter.

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When conducting your counts, you will find people with perhaps a coffee and a mobile, or a drink container and food packaging and mobile. These people will be recorded into all of the appropriate categories. You will find that after observing the 100 people, you may have well more than 100 observations recorded against all the categories combined.

You need to know this, think of how many people are carrying a mobile with some other piece of potential litter, now get them to use a handle to open a bin, not happening they won’t put the phone near the bin handle.

You’ve just learned that you try not to have handles or hand opened bins in busy areas where a large percentage of people are carrying mobiles. 

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When to conduct the observations?

1. Anytime between 7.00am and 9.00am
2. Anytime between 11.00am and 1.00pm
3. Anytime between 3.30pm and 5.30pm

(Littering in and around late night entertainment prescient’s will require a slightly adjusted thinking, we will leave that for another posting)

The location is completely up to you; these observations are applicable at any location, and because it’s more about bodies in motion than what’s on the ground you can even be mobile when you’re conducting your observation.

Here’s a quick preview of what your screenshot would look like from the app, this data once collected is simply emailed back to your office for sorting into a spreadsheet or some records keeping tool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time & Date	Nothing	Smoking	Beverage	Food Packaging	Consuming Food	Mobile, bags etc	Total count
8.00am	32	6	19	11	7	46	121
12.00pm	21	5	25	30	15	35	131
4.30pm	39	3	9	15	4	43	113

I’ve just populated the table to give you an example, these numbers will be different depending on location type, but things like consuming food in the afternoon and lots of beverages and food packaging at lunch time are very logical observations.

We are not looking to create a giant set of data or any reoccurring observations. This set of observations is about helping you understand what people are doing in your parks or on your footpaths.

Behaviours will be different when you’re comparing cities and towns, parks or footpaths but you’ll find that the same six simple observations will start to help you understand more about what’s happening in any area.

Once you’ve observed a couple of hundred people in any location, you’ll start to form a picture of what types of “pre-litter” are moving about in your public places. If you’re in a place that may not have 100 people through it in a short enough time frame just scale your numbers back, 25 people three times a day will start to give you the same type of understanding.

Now I’m not from your town or city but my experience tells me your number of smokers moving about with a lit cigarette will be around-a-bout 4 in any 100 (1 in 25). The other observations will vary a little dependent upon nearby business (buildings with smokers), retail outlets or food retailers.

What these observations should start to show you is how litter is mobile, it’s not just about the site where your teams collect litter regularly. There is a whole bunch of activity from when the product was sold in a shop to the point that it was littered.

Understanding how people are moving in and out of spaces, what they are carrying and what they are consuming helps explain the origin, you will now know a little about;

• what bin types
• where they could be installed
• different signs at different locations
• where your enforcement officers could start patrolling and
• when your cleaning activities could be focused
• what time of the day cleaning should be applied

This observation of people with pre-litter can be done anywhere and anytime. If you have an immaculate site somewhere in your town or city, you should still apply the same observations. You will eventually see that the numbers of people with nothing or mobile/bag will be considerably higher than other spaces. This helps inform bin numbers and positions. Please don’t only look for dirty areas and try to establish fixes, that’s reactionary, look for clean areas and develop understandings and learnings that can be carried to other similar spaces.

The good, the bad and the ugly all have something to teach you.

If you have any questions about this process or are looking for some assistance in getting started, please feel free to contact me at, paul@wasteadspace.com.au and I’ll be happy to help get you started.