Your editorial (April 24) about cleanups missed an opportunity to educate people about littering.  As so often happens Earth Day’s focus is on the marvelous volunteers who tidy other people’s messes.  I was pleased to see a letter on litter in The Scarborough Mirror recently, but was disappointed that your editorial and your paper in general do not give the litter problem its due.  Cleanups are like food banks.  With each, we need to solve the core problem to eliminate their necessity. 

We generally see very little emphasis on changing the behaviour of littering, an act, which, besides being against the law, is anti-social and disrespectful to the environment we all share. 

Littering is a costly and vile act that I don’t want to see society tolerate.  Most people do not litter. For many it is a pet peeve.

Fifty-five per cent of all littering is deliberate.  The remainder is a result of poor housekeeping and carelessness – people who pack their bins to overflowing and are sloppy with their recycling procedures, truckers who don’t secure their cargo, newspaper and flyer delivery people who hurl instead of tuck or wrap, companies and property owners that fail to keep their frontages clean. 

There is much to discuss when it comes to litter and littering, how it harms wildlife, lowers property values, turns off tourism, ratchets down quality of life, breeds crime, drains tax dollars, leaves the environment poorer. 

Scarborough is home to the internationally recognized website www.litterpreventionprogram.com and a fun and effective educational program dedicated to reducing the overall rate of littering.  You have to talk conversationally about litter and speak to litterers to have a hope of improvement. Our free weekly newsletter, This Week In “Litterland”, gives people something to talk about. 

I would like people to know about and use these resources.

Hon. James Bradley
Minister of the Environment
Province of Ontario

Dear Minister Bradley,

As an elected representative, you know people are generally concerned about littering.  I am writing ahead of Earth Day 2014 to revisit an issue I tried unsuccessfully to advance using the Environmental Bill of Rights in November 2012. 
 
My Litter Prevention Program is again reaching out to you to encourage you to take a ‘hands-on’ interest in having a conversation about reducing litter. This goes beyond the cleanup and into the stream of innovation, education, awareness building and behavioural change, in which I am a specialist and acknowledged expert.
 
A City of Toronto staff report has proposed a role for the province in permitting levies to be increased on the price of cigarettes to help the municipality pay for cleanup of cigarette butts and preventive education and promotion of anti-littering specifically concerning tobacco products.  No doubt your ministry will be hearing a repeating refrain from municipalities calling for more assistance provincially for litter reduction efforts, each with its own scheme for raising the revenue.
 
Although, surprisingly, your ministry does not track the topic of litter, it is an emerging concern worldwide.  For example, there will be annual European conferences on litter beginning in May of this year.
 
Again, I request that your ministry pull together a forum where realistic solutions to littering can be brought forward and dealt with as a public collective.  Participants might include representation from Ontario municipalities, school boards, environmental groups, product stewards, tourism, business and the general public.
 
May I please have your ear to talk about this, or receive a call from one of your aides in this regard?  I enclose relevant background materials as links below. I can be reached at 416-321-0633 or via reply email, [email protected].  Thank you.
 
Sincerely,
 
 
Sheila White
Founder, Litter Prevention Program
Publisher, This Week In Litterland 

Our First Annual Progress Report

Today is the closest the world gets to a calendar date dedicated to people who litter.  April Fools' Day.  Only a fool would think it is okay to spread his or her legacy of loose waste on the planet.  Yet so many people do this.  They can be rich or broke, dressed in pinstripes or tatters, drive a luxury car or take the bus.  People who litter come in all shapes, sizes, incomes and backgrounds.  This is the same description that experts use when speaking about rapists, bullies, addicts and other abusers in the anti-social realm.

Mindless fools.  One remedy to littering could be found in mindfulness training.  Awareness really does open eyes.

But, since April Fools' is all about tricks and surprise endings, here’s news that fits the bill: a quit-smoking measure has backfired on Australia, a global zealot among nations bent on legislating smoking out of existence.  Underpinning the strategy was the country’s forerunning move in December 2012 to demand plain packaging for tobacco products – no more branding with fetchingly colourful logos and designs.  All cigarettes were mandated into identical, drab packaging.

The latest study proves to be a mockery of the entire idea that plain packages reduce smoking, and, tangentially, litter.  A recent report has debunked that premise by pointing out that smoking has increased with the advent of plain packs.

Figures released March 25 from AU tobacco companies show a rise in tobacco sales by 59 million cigarettes while black market ‘branded’ packs also flooded the market in the first year of plain packaging.  Funny, tobacco sales had been on a steady downward slide before 2009 and all the attendant publicity around the government's measure.  Under the new approach, black market sales climbed by 154 per cent, according to KPMG research.  All the more to be littered, so a blow to the environmental keep clean movements as well. 

More smuggled product is being seized by Australian Customs. Illegal tobacco seizures more than doubled to 200 million in 2012/13 from 82 million in 2010/11.

Figures from the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service show illegal tobacco seizures have more than doubled between 2010/11 and 2012/13 from 82 million cigarettes to 200 million.

Two separate university studies tried but were unable to link plain packaging to deterring smoking among youth 14-17.

I bet the tobacco companies wish they could recoup all the money they expended on fighting Australia’s plain packaging laws in the first place.  This April Fools' Day, Team Big Tobacco Australia is having the last laugh, if not the last cough.

And did I mention that G20 leaders have agreed to host a 2016 world summit on litter laws and solutions?  April Fools'!

See the news story that inspired this blog.