Litter Prevention Program
Phone: (416) 321-0633
  • Home
    • 2014 Annual Report
    • This Week in 'Litterland' >
      • Current Edition
      • Past Issues by Date
    • Guide
  • Media
    • Sheila's Shlog >
      • Dear Diary
    • About >
      • Press Release
      • Program Brochure >
        • Program Details
      • What People Say >
        • Visitor Feedback
  • Get Involved
    • Partnerships
    • Help Us >
      • Our Friends
    • Heroes
  • News Reel
    • Feb 2023
    • Jan 2023 >
      • Dec 2022
      • Nov 2022 >
        • Oct 2022
        • Sep 2022 >
          • Aug 2022
          • Jul 2022
          • Jun 2022
          • May 2022
          • Apr 2022 >
            • Mar 2022
            • Feb 2022
            • Jan 2022
            • Dec. 2021
            • Nov. 2021 >
              • Oct. 2021
              • Sep. 2021
              • Aug. 2021
              • Jul. 2021
              • Jun. 2021
              • May 2021
              • Apr. 2021 >
                • Mar. 2021
                • Feb. 2021
                • Jan. 2021
                • Dec. 2020 >
                  • Nov. 2020
                  • Oct. 2020
                  • Sep. 2020
                  • Aug. 2020
                  • Jul. 2020
                  • Jun. 2020 >
                    • May 2020
                    • Apr. 2020
                    • Mar. 2020
                    • Feb. 2020
                    • Jan. 2020 >
                      • Dec. 2019
                      • Nov. 2019
                      • Oct. 2019
                      • Sep. 2019
                      • Aug. 2019
                      • Jul. 2019
                      • Jun. 2019
                      • May 2019
                      • Apr. 2019
                      • Mar. 2019 >
                        • Feb. 2019
                        • Jan. 2019
                        • Dec. 2018
                        • Nov. 2018
                        • Oct. 2018
                        • Sep. 2018 >
                          • Aug. 2018
                          • Jul. 2018
                          • Jun. 2018
                          • May 2018
                          • Apr. 2018
                          • Mar. 2018
                          • Feb. 2018
                          • Jan. 2018
  • Photo Gallery
    • Video
    • Library
    • Butts and More Butts
    • Clean Up Days
    • Coffee Cups
    • Litter Photos
    • Poster
  • Prevent Litter
    • You Vote
    • Opinion Poll
    • Causes
    • Solutions
    • Benefits
    • Tips >
      • For Business
    • Tobacco litter >
      • Fact Sheet
      • Letter to Imperial Tobacco
    • Resources >
      • Marine Litter
      • Plastics
    • Why Prevent Litter?
    • Toronto
  • Contact
    • Corporate Brochures
    • WORDS Media & Communications Inc.

Seeing red over littering? Try yellow.

7/9/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Bolton's environmental education and enforcement manager Andy Bolan and officer Alan Jones
In my opinion the residents of Bolton, UK are lucky indeed. Okay, not everyone would view with such a welcoming glance a lemon-yellow surveillance truck with "Anti-social behaviour" written on the side.
But in the view of this humble litter investigator and scribe, any place that's willing to tackle anti-social conduct with such zeal deserves a place in the Litterland Hall of Fame.
Litter doesn't diminish on its own. In fact it multiplies like an invasive species. 

Bolton takes the nip-in-bud strategy to environmental offences.  Did you know that the threat of being seen and the embarrassment of being caught are two powerful deterrents to all these unwanted behaviours?  

CCTV cameras?  Too bad they are needed.  With all due respect to privacy purists, this may be one instance where the overarching public good trumps the personal infringement argument.  I will leave it to others to debate this.  All I know is I am heartened every time I see a punctuated response to littering, dog-fouling, graffiti and dumping.  Not a one-off of sloganeering or political posturing and toothless laws, but a well thought out series of linked steps to bring the majority-held standard into effect.

You can read more about Bolton's approach in Crime Reporter Miranda Newey's piece in The Bolton News.

When one tries to push for holistic action on littering, the first instinct of those who could most help is to try to dismiss you as crazy.  While Bolton's bold posture fails to prove I'm not crazy, it sure gives legs to my advocacy for sustained responses to littering here at home. 


 
0 Comments

Dear Diary:  (June)

6/15/2014

 
A couple of bright spots popped into view during my recent observations of litter’s ugly trail.

Heading into Toronto at a slow crawl on the Gardiner Expressway I see the signs, their LED bulbs aglow. These are new.  They read: Keep Toronto roads clean. Don’t litter.

This is an idea I’ve been pushing at MTO, whose main roadside litter guy, Mike, welcomed my advocacy. We will be seeing at long last a dedicated litter message displayed during the summer on new provincial road signs slated for some Ontario highways.  You would think something like that would be easy to orchestrate, a classic no-brainer.  In reality, making alterations to any existing government communications program and its bureaucratic approach feels like trying to break into jail.

Next, I want the transport ministry to mention littering on driver license renewal forms.

Another highlight to note, I see there’s a LiveGreen Toronto subway ad campaign to encourage people to recycle, probably aimed at condo dwellers, whose boards are notoriously slow to get with the environmental times.

On occasion I notice really clean commercial lots around town. What a great calling card it is to see open lawns, decent, well-placed containers, conveying respect and caring! The halo effect seemed to spill to the street and sidewalks, which were amazingly absent of litter for a city like Toronto.

I know everyone says, “Toronto is a clean city”.  If we are, we are a clean city with a very dirty secret. Cast your eyes to the broad landscape and you can’t tell me I’m wrong.
***

(June 8, 2014) Had a message from Toronto Ward 6 Councillor Mark Grimes inviting me to speak to a joint Business Improvement Area meeting of 20 or so business owners next Friday. I said I would be delighted.  Litterers pose a particular problem for retailers.  

I’ll be heading to Etobicoke, home of Toronto’s notorious mayor, (who I exposed as a litterer – search keywords: Sheila White Rob Ford littering.)  Fortunately, he’s in drug-and-alcohol rehab right now and can’t do any more damage for a while. 

He’s the human version of the Exxon Valdez. 

Atrophied, wooden and full of holes, this could be a replica of the brain of someone who litters.  The profile of a litterer is not a handsome one.  How intriguing that a burl on an ancient apple tree could look so much like the dead wood, dead head types who really are not thinking when they trash everyday surroundings.  Most are not out to cause willful and malicious damage, but all litterers are thoughtless.  In my house they would be called "tupi". That's 'stupid' without the 's' and the 'd'!
Picture

Dear Diary:

3/29/2014

0 Comments

 
March 29th - Earth Hour tonight at 8:30. I want the same kind of attention for litter. A dedicated day and time when everyone is told to not litter and there's massive publicity leading up to such a world event. Not littering is exponentially better for the environment than turning one's lights off for one hour once a year. Wanted: Influential interests to help make No Litter Day a reality.
Contact Litter Prevention Program and let's get it going!
Picture
Where is this scene? 1) Near a river 2) In a public park 3) Outside a hospital 4) Behind a restaurant/bar
If you read the caption, above, and guessed that this scene was taken immediately outside the door of a downtown hospital, you'd be right. I took this photo yesterday to illustrate what's lacking in this whole quit smoking drive, which pushes tobacco litter outdoors into uncontrolled settings absent of ash receptacles. I provide a service that is sorely needed, that of simply talking nicely to smokers and giving them an ashtray.  Then they are more than willing to cooperate with your anti-littering drives. No bylaw that chases smoking outside should prevent the installation of ash receptacles, but that is the unfortunate result of most smoking bans for areas around entranceways.  (March 27, 2014)
What a horrible and frightening fate befell those aboard Malaysian jetliner Flt 370. My sympathies to all their loved ones. CNN today began examining the role of ocean garbage in the search crisis. I had wondered aloud in the early going how long before the focus would turn to marine litter. A patch of man's garbage the size of a small island has impeded the search for crash debris and answers for the grieving families. Is this not a stark admission that we are smothering our planet with garbage. A life-and-death reason to stop littering? 
 A positive litter reminder popped into my head. Three words "Contain your litter". And I learned a new word for "litterbug" from the UK the other day. It's "grub".  (March 24, 2014) 
This journal is a window into the brain of a litter prevention zealot, a new feature on this website. Random thoughts. Tweets, really, but with more character(s). Always great to hear from folks.  Find me on Twitter  @white_sheila or click HERE to email me.
Could Wrigley's reluctance to deal head-on with  chewing gum litter education and eradication have anything to do with industry numbers in the news today?  Chewing gum consumption has decreased by 11 per cent over the past four years as children trend away from gum.  (March 21, 2014)
I gave a guy not one, but two, extinguishing portable, reusable ashtrays. One he could use in the forest, he volunteered. Smoking in forests, I cringe. Today news of a devastating fire ravaging 50 hectares of endangered species habitat in Manila's mountains. Suspected cause? A littered cigarette butt.  READ ... and weep.  (March 21, 2014)
Picture
On Location during filming
Picture
ANSWER: Cigarette butts
Picture
A well-run afternoon of filming for "The Dark Side of the Chew", a documentary on chewing gum litter slated for TVO viewing later this year.  Here I am (above) with  environmental filmmaker Andrew Nisker (centre), of Take Action Films, and Ian (left) worker of the lens magic.  (March 20, 2014)

Very excited. Today I will be the subject of filming for a documentary on gum litter by noted globe-trotting, garbage-tracking Toronto filmmaker Andrew Nisker. Chewing gum is the world's number two ranked item of small litter.  Can you guess what is Number One? Hint: See photo, left.  
(March 19, 2014)

Picture
Positively creative! There's something catchy about the City of Rochester's logo - trying to make things "a litter bit better."  I love creativity, the sure road to solving problems.  Be creative. One of my favourite Cole Porter songs says it all: "Use Your Imagination". What do I imagine? I imagine I can make a difference. And you can,too. Where does your imagination take you ? (March 18, 2014)

Yesterday I knocked on a neighbour’s door and asked her to dispense with the multiple huge mounds of dog pooh straddling the property line in the front yard. She said ‘yes’. Big, friendly, 3-year-old boxer named Leo was the culprit. Not his normal practice. Headline: Canine breaks jail, neighbour cries 'foul'. (March 18, 2014)


0 Comments

    Author

    SHEILA WHITE is President and CEO of WORDS Media & Communications Inc and is founder and publisher of this website andThis Week In "Litterland" newsletter.

    Archives

    March 2021
    December 2020
    May 2020
    June 2019
    December 2018
    January 2016
    November 2015
    April 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014

    Categories

    All
    Environment
    Litter Prevention
    Ontario Politics
    Sheila White
    Toronto

    RSS Feed