By Jared Tankel
The human-environment interaction that’s my topic is littering. The reason that this issue is so prevalent in the area that I chose to take my picture in is because the surrounding buildings don’t have any sort of trash room. While most dorm buildings have a room where you can bring your garbage bags once they’re full, half of the buildings in President’s Park don’t have this, causing hundreds of students to have to throw their trash away in one dumpster. The specific dumpster that I chose for my topic may look like a normal dumpster, but there are several reasons why it’s not. For one, it’s actually only meant for recycling, more specifically for recycling that’s in large plastic bags only. The actual dumpster is so out of the way that a lot of people don’t even know that it exists, thus throwing all of their garbage into the recycling, instead of where it should go. Second of all, due to there only being one place to throw stuff away for so many people, it always ends up overflowing at night, oftentimes causing random trash to drift throughout the entirety of President’s Park.
Littering is a safety hazard and a source of visual pollution(Crump et al.). It’s also shown that litter being present makes people more likely to be willing to litter themselves, which creates a cycle of more and more people littering(Crump). Due to these factors, people find themselves not caring about litter, as it becomes something normal, rather than something that should be looked down upon. By not throwing away the trash correctly, this can cause incorrect materials to be thrown away and taken to landfills, where they won’t decompose properly. This also causes trash to be thrown in the recycling, which makes the entire load of recycling bad, causing it to have to be thrown out, as that’s easier to do than sort through the entire load of recycling.
Additionally, younger people typically litter more(Al-Mosa et al.), so it makes sense that a college campus is prone to more littering than most other areas. However, this isn’t an excuse, but rather just some rationale behind why there is litter here. One of the key drivers behind why there’s litter in the area I chose is because the dorms surrounding the dumpster have nowhere else to throw trash, causing the dumpster to quickly fill up and overflow. This overflowing, combined with no other place to throw away trash in the area, limits the options for the students, and they often choose the easiest option, which is to litter.
I would say, like I mentioned in the last paragraph, that demographic trends play a large role in why people litter. The college’s demographics is primarily people aged 18-23, especially with the area where the dumpster is skewing more towards the 18-20 range. Another factor that likely plays a role is cultural factors. For one, Mason is extremely diverse, and littering is viewed very differently in different cultures. As another presenter mentioned, their culture(Nepal) views littering very differently than the US does.
There are a few potential solutions that could be implemented to reduce littering in the President’s Park area. First of all, the first step taken should be to add very clear signs on the dumpsters saying what’s meant to be thrown away in them. Next, the easiest solution would be to add another dumpster or two to the area, causing there to be ample areas for people to throw their trash away. Another solution is to repurpose certain rooms in the dorm buildings as “trash rooms.” These rooms would have garbage bins in them where people can easily throw their trash away. Lastly, people are less likely to litter with other people present(Bateson et al). Due to this, some sort of 24 hour surveillance in the park with signs saying that there’s 24 hour surveillance and that littering will be punished would likely greatly reduce littering in this area.
At this current point in time, the University does not seem to be acting on the issue. Even something as small as signs denoting what the bins are for would be a good addition from the University.
Photos
Works Cited
Al-mosa, Y., Parkinson, J., & Rundle-Thiele, S. (2017). A socioecological examination of observing littering behavior. Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, 29(3), 235–253. https://doi.org/10.1080/10495142.2017.1326354
Bateson, M., Robinson, R., Abayomi-Cole, T., Greenlees, J., O’Connor, A., & Nettle, D. (2015). Watching eyes on potential litter can reduce littering: Evidence from two field experiments. PeerJ, 3. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1443
Crump, S. L., Nunes, D. L., & Crossman, E. K. (1977). The effects of litter on littering behavior in a forest environment. Environment and Behavior, 9(1), 137–146. https://doi.org/10.1177/001391657791009