Standing on the litter observation deck gives me a gull's eye view of the problems.  Then, of course, I feel obliged to report my findings to you. As a publicity-mad boss of mine often repeated, “What's the point of doing anything if no one knows about it?”

The observation deck isn't a real place, mind you. It's a mental approach I use for studying littering. Cool detachment, scientific precision, just the bare facts, absent of emotion.  

From my perch I look for omissions, contradictions, missed opportunities and reasons why.  So I’m looking at CentreLine, the one-page info sheet that accompanies my Ontario vehicle plate sticker renewal form.

What a perfect publication for information about roadside litter!  When you total what Ontario and municipalities spend on cleaning up the stuff, you might think a caution to drivers to not litter would be higher on the list of priorities than an offer to purchase a vanity licence plate.

Roadside litter is now a declared hazard in countries as far flung as China and New Zealand, and closer to home in Texas and Illinois.  “Roadside litter” in the Chinese language recently made it into the Cambridge online dictionary so prevalent is the habit of littering from cars in China now. You might think I’m joking that  banana peels are in the top three items tossed from vehicles in China.  I’d hate to see an elder slip on one of those skins.  It takes two years for a banana peel to decompose on pavement.

Why is there no mention of litter in the handout that goes to every single licensed driver in the Province of Ontario?  Clearly the thinking behind this government insert hasn’t been updated in years. This is such a missed opportunity to focus on one of the Ministry of Transportation’s main responsibilities – clean highways.

CentreLine informs us that drinking and driving laws in Ontario have changed and hits us with a few ‘did you know?’ alcohol facts. It references distracted driving, no hands-on phone talk or texting or face up to $500 in fines.  We read about no smoking with kids in a car and the availability of the enhanced driver’s licence. There is contact information and details on how to access online Ministry of Transportation services.  

Half the 7- x 14-inch sheet from MTO spends way too many lines on three apparently frequently asked questions: what to do when approaching a stopped police vehicle with its lights flashing, who can use and how to use High Occupancy Vehicle lanes and how to figure out whether the vehicle needs a Drive Clean emissions test.

But does the sheet once mention not littering from vehicles, particularly the number one scourge of all litter bar none, from roadside to seaside, cigarette butts? The silence is beyond deafening. Something stinks worse than a littered butt smoldering in a grocery store parking lot.

Hello, MTO? Time for a major redesign and a fresh rewrite of that CentreLine insert.  Advertising Ontario’s litter laws should be there front and centre, and perhaps enforcement might not be far behind.

Ontario is weak on litter and a new law could make that situation a lot worse.  

September 4 is the last date for public comment on the Province of Ontario's proposed Waste Reduction Act, legislation that is silent on litter. We believe this is the time to be hands-on and address littering head-on.  



Bill 91 in Ontario, the Waste Reduction Act, leaves a loophole you can drive a truck through and then litter out its window afterwards. No self-respecting environmentalist would condone a province-wide waste reduction law that doesn't include a plan for dealing with littering.

As this photo validates, Ontario operates under an antiquated, hands-off approach to littering. The new bill attempts to write-off litter altogether by relying on the insidious industry term, "end of life waste".  This insider jargon means industry and government can legally ignore the issue of waste that is littered, such as the materials seen above, clogging the drains within a few meters of Ontario's laughably ineffective litter sign, advertising a law that is rarely enforced and routinely ignored.

Those chip bags, food wrappers, cups and gum on the ground – they may look dead, but they are not at the “end of life”. The bin is their coffin.  If they do not land in a bin, legislators let producers off the hook. This dimly lit view has led to Ontario’s failure to reach its 60 per cent diversion target. (Currently at 25%) It’s the reason why littering continues to be pervasive and growing in Ontario and why the provincial government gives the issue of litter as waste zero of its attention.

Fifty-five per cent of all littering is deliberate. The rest is accidental. Regardless, all littering is illegal.

I believe Ontario should deal with littering as it deals with waste reduction and diversion. A good start would be to delete all references to “end-of-life” waste and just call it what it all is: “waste.”

How can anyone credibly say that litter and waste don’t fit together?

You would be helping the litter prevention cause by telling the Ministry of Environment before September 4, 2013 that you object to litter being omitted from Ontario's proposed Waste Reduction Act. A simple sentence like that is all you need to say. Contact information, comment form and details about Bill 91 are here.

A waste management expert agrees it is prudent for me to sound the alarm over Bill 91, the proposed Waste Reduction Act in Ontario.  The legislation aims to change how we recycle in Ontario, involving waste producers more and setting up a hybrid system of third-party agency and producer self-policing. 

Ontario has not mastered the art of diverting waste. Far from it, collectively only 23 per cent of our total waste is saved from going to landfill. Nor has Ontario shown an acumen for making less waste, government ministries being among the bigger offenders. In Ontario, recycling programs vary depending on where you are in the province. The government shies away from setting uniform high standards for municipalities and waste producers.    

In fact, this legislation offloads much of the power to bodies outside of the Ministry of the Environment.  
That worries me.  So does the fact that the waste management sector is pushing hard for incineration waste-to-energy programs to count as “Recovery”, the Fourth “R” and to embrace 4Rs, as has occurred in the European Union.

In Ontario, we don’t need 4Rs in this bill. 3Rs are plenty if you do them right.  Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.  We should be sticking to our course of defining what it means to have the best recycling collection program in the world in our homegrown blue box approach. Set sustainability targets. Force places like banks, service stations, construction sites and public spaces to offer recycling.  We all know where the likely litter hosts are. Get full ICI participation from Industry, Commerce and Institutions. The province should be initiating awareness-raising campaigns and best practices, doing everything possible to elevate public thinking and action.

It would not hurt to tell the Ministry of Environment that we support 3Rs not 4 in Ontario’s proposed Waste Reduction Act to counteract the industry lobby, you can comment on Bill 91 here until September 4.

***

Another problem with Bill 91: It shuts the door to new deposit-return systems.  Any legislator worth his or her environmental salt will want to stand up and defend deposit-refund systems as part of the mix in Ontario, some of which involve small fees of a few pennies.  

Impetus for the cumbersome Bill 91 came from the government’s desire to be forever off the hot seat after its stewardship agency badly botched the roll out of eco-fees in 2010. Some of those eco-fees were quite steep.  Those costs would be built into the product pricing under Bill 91 and summarized on the price tag.

The fee I want to preserve is the effective, tried-and-true, deposit-return system.  Total recycling results in less litter and near perfect diversion.

Ontario Beer Stores show a 99% recycling rate for materials returned to their locations.  It’s a simple system that everyone understands.  Deposit-return has a place in the waste reduction regime.  No one’s going to quibble over a few pennies extra on a can of pop or a pack of smokes.

In the absolute political fever to erase eco-fees from the electoral memory and from the books, Ontario policy writers were not able to recommend viable deposit-return schemes such as are running in other provinces.

In a previous blog here one year ago I called for the establishment of a “litter school” administered by the courts. (“What governments could do”, August 20, 2012). Lo and behold today I read that a city is proceeding with something along the same lines.  So I’m not nuts after all, at least not for thinking this could and should be done. 

In Guyana they propose to fast track what they call environment crimes along a newly created branch of the law and order tree, an environment court.  This is where they will send an entire cross section of litter pulp, from two-bit litterers to big-time dumpers.  All will be trotted before a judge who will decide how firmly to apply the newly trumped up cleanliness laws which aim to make a dent in the garbage strewn landscape.

Fines and ticketing will be the order of the day once the Guyanese public has had time to become accustomed to the idea.  “Intensified public awareness” will occur during the grace period.  Reasonable and sound approaches, but how to ensure that litterers pay the fines?

In Rio de Janeiro the zero waste “Lixo Zero” cuts to the heart of enforcement by recording tax roll numbers of those ticketed for littering.  If the fine goes unpaid it will affect the offender’s ability to use credit cards or obtain loans. This new regime is being rolled out after a 51-day postponement while the city hosted a massive Catholic youth event, where pilgrims received litterbags upon arrival and participated in what appears to have been a litter-free papal visit and World Youth Day – a first for any city.

While some jurisdictions tiptoe around the edges of the littering dilemma, others dive right in and put the public mind to the task of creating litter prevention measures.  It doesn’t help that people don’t separate their garbage in Rio. The culture built up around people throwing trash on the street has raised sufficient alarm as to spawn a meaningful drive among Zero Wasters to tackle littering head-on. With government’s support they may well do it.

I don’t know about you, but I would definitely watch “Litter Court” if it became a TV show.

My corner was hit by an ashtray dumper. Just one street over at the stop sign leading into my neighbourhood, someone thought it an ideal place to empty a messy pile of 80 butts on the road.  Ideal, because no one is likely to see you. It’s near a sewer grate. A perfect chute for rainwater washed cigarette toxins to enter the ecosystem.

Who does this kind of thing? Especially with all that is now known about the fragility of the planet?  Research is sparse, but thanks to studies funded by big tobacco companies we know quite a bit about the nature of the littering smoker.

Smokers do not like to see ashtray dumping any more than I do.  In fact they are appalled by the behavior of these ignorant smokers. Yet they wouldn't think twice about flicking a butt to the curb if an ashtray wasn't in sight. Smokers do not define that act as littering.  To them it's a legitimate means of disposal.  That’s just how it's done, so they think.

When they grind, stomp and mash a lit butt into the pavement or against the side of a building, flick it into a puddle, gulley or snow bank; they believe they are doing a good turn. They are preventing a fire.

Almost double the number of smokers litter than do not: 65/35 out of 100. They give a number of pat excuses for their tobacco littering. No point in repeating their excuses, far more interesting to peer behind the cop-outs to find the real reason why people litter, smokers with even greater proclivity.

Breaking science offers up a few clues. Two telling studies may help unlock the mystery and identify markers of a predisposition to littering.

Ph.D. biz whiz Andy Yap's work on power stances correlates one's physical space and body language to the tendency to break rules. A series of tests proved that one's cortisol and testosterone levels changed with the adoption of Yap's two sets of body configurations. In turn, feelings of power and entitlement grew within the subject’s mind when after sitting or standing in the classic “Type A” personality postures Yap's team developed. Occupying a vast space behind a big desk or in the big front seat of a vehicle, for example, Yap shows, increases the likelihood of that person speeding, pilfering from the office or cheating.

I contacted Andy Yap. He quickly wrote back to validate my hypothesis that his work can aptly be applied to littering.

Sheila, he says, “I think that the psychology of power does have some implications for littering. If littering works the same way as other corrupt and anti-social behaviors, then power would cause people to do whatever they want and disregard the rules and laws there are in place.

“Anything that creates this feeling of power, be it posture, actual rank, or simply recalling a time one felt powerful can create strong feelings of power.”


Also three separate studies, in New Zealand, US and England, are rewriting our understanding of what causes the unruly child as a result of looking into maternal smoking in pregnancy. They conclude mom’s prenatal smoking is related to "conduct disorders" in those children.  Team leader Gordon Harold, PhD, of the University of Leicester in England, reports their independent findings in JAMA Psychiatry 2013.  

What if we could predict and had early detection for litterers?  In my imaginary litter-less world, if your mom stupidly smoked during pregnancy, if you strut your power stances and the interior space around you is oversized, or if you lacked experiences with nature through environmental education, you’d automatically be rolled into the Litter Prevention Program regardless of your age.

Non-littering behaviors can be learned.

Gob-smacked! That’s what you’d say about a giddy, star-struck fan. Now the term has a whole new meaning thanks to tortured teen idol Justin Bieber. 

If you happen to be underneath a hotel balcony where Biebs is staying, gob-smacked could mean you just might end up with his yellowed mucous landing on your head. His now-infamous spitting episode the latest in a long line of seeming etiquette gaffes the young singer seems to be having trouble with his meteoric star status.  Spitting from balconies, a bubbling froth of Justin Bieber’s saliva spilling over captured in media for all to, um, what - drool over? 

I tweeted @justinbieber to make the point that spitting is littering.  I told him I need celebrities to work with me, not against me, on litter prevention. Celebrities like Taylor Swift, Michael Sheen in Wales and top model Laura Wells in Australia speak out against littering. The latter two are front-and-centre in their respective national campaigns. Thanks to TMZ we have a forever-image of the singer from Thursday in Toronto - one we would prefer to forget.

Spitting is one in a brotherhood of anti-social behaviors that includes public littering, urinating, graffiti and vandalism.  There are laws against spitting all over the world.  Spitting is a leading cause of spreading  tuberculosis. Countries like India and China are planning to crack down hard.

Lately it’s as though some LA marketing bad boy gave the Biebs a handbook on how to spoil his image to increase his popularity with guys. I would rather think that his out-of-control actions are of the scripted variety rather than conclude that the kid is coming unglued.

Bieber is heading into the dicey 18-35 male demographic that is prone to disrespecting public space.  Litterers leave behind a costly problem, not just gob.

I want to see Justin Bieber promise to not spit and to make the connection between his galactic status and the peer group his actions influence.  Come to think of it, he would be a perfect ambassador for litter prevention around the world.

I wonder if he’ll answer my tweet?

Over at the building near me where you renew passports they have the coolest outdoor ashtrays.  Made of precast concrete, these four-sided, flat-bottomed, V-shaped tubs stand about three-feet high.  They are filled with black sand-like material, which gives a nice contrast to the grey and brown stone aggregate of the container. 

I see three ashtrays strategically placed between long benches, which sit in front of raised concrete planters.  Seemingly intended as a pleasant place for office workers to sit and eat lunch, read a book or soak in a few rays during a summer smoke break, from a distance the installation was arrestingly impressive to yours truly, litter investigator.

My partner and I approached to take a closer look.  There were browning cigarette filters protruding cleanly out of the sand.  Butts were concentrated in the centre, but the numbers seemed sparse.  The receptacles provided quite a wide circular area of sand as a target for the ends of cigarettes.  These impressive bins can handle thousands upon thousands of properly discarded butts.  Why do we see only 50 or so per bin?  Why more sand than butts?

Detectives need to study everything. We were asking all the right questions even though we already knew the answers.

Sure enough, despite hosting the Shwarzenegger of all ashtrays, being head and shoulders above most and having one of the best set-ups we have seen, the smoking area was littered with castaway cigarette ends, on the ground, in the cracks, under the benches, in nooks and corners, blowing down sewer grates, sullying the planter boxes.  Not the image the landscaper had in mind when designing the space and caring for the butt-invaded greenery.

To a smoker those ashtrays should be alluring. Clean? Yes. Attractive? Yes. Easy? Accessible? Yes and yes!  Yet thousands of butts pockmarked the vicinity. It happens everywhere because smokers are blind to their littering.  While some nations attempt to educate, Ontario, Canada, for one, is notoriously silent about telling smokers that butt throwing is littering, an unlawful deed.

Who can design the sexiest ashtray, one all smokers will use? My partner thinks he has an answer. 

It would be shaped like a concrete trough, the kind of vessel used to hold pig slop.  It would run along the sides of areas where people smoke and where smokers walk.  It would be a can’t-miss contraption filled with extinguishing sand.  Wherever they were, smokers could flip smoldering butts in the endless troughs, facilitating collections and keeping them out of the general environment.

Some people don’t know the butts are worth money in the recycling trade.  Imagine the troughs full of money we’d make if smokers used ashtrays like they’re supposed to.  Then smokers would be the good guys.  What about it, smokers? Can I count you in?

Contact the author of this article or email [email protected] with further questions, comments or tips

My friend told me a litter tale last night.

Her home is situated behind an apartment building.  Not a high-rise, an older six-storey building.  An eight-foot fence in Marilyn’s backyard separates her property from the apartment building’s parking lot.  Looking to the back of her yard she spied some colored objects and went to investigate.  A number of small plastic toys lay scattered at the fence line.

Marilyn’s first instinct was to check with her next-door neighbor to see if the items belonged to the children living there.  Neighbor John, who happens to be a litter-loather, disavowed any ownership of the playthings.

“Then it hit me,” Marilyn said. “Someone in the parking lot had cleaned out their car and had thrown the stuff over the fence into my yard.”

“So I gathered it up and threw it back.”

There was a pause.  I knew my friend had more to say by the reflective tilt to her head and her slight nod.

“I know I should not have littered even in that situation,” she acknowledged, “but by my clearing it away, nobody would learn anything. “

My friend raises a valid point.  Picking up after someone who litters does not teach that person anything.  But neither does heaving kids’ toys back over the fence.

I’ve had others tell me that they refuse to pick-up litter because they think the litterer should do it. That’s a fair comment. The tidy person who joins clean-up brigades does double-duty, first by not littering and then by picking up after others. Someone who litters gets the picture of a society devoted to the task of cleaning up his or her mess and so continues tossing/dropping/ flicking and leaving trash behind.

Yet littering begets more littering.  Undoing it takes time and a little bit of effort, but is satisfying.  If the goal is to teach someone about not littering one can take another tack.  

The next time I talk to my friend, I will tell her I have reflected on her predicament and have suggestions what might work to solve her problem. 

A meaningful lesson would be delivered in collecting the materials in a bag and taking them to the building’s property manager. Explain the problem, or drop it off with a note. Suggest that no littering signs be installed or perhaps a few inexpensive planter boxes filled with colourful annuals.  People tend to litter less in well-kept areas. 

Write a letter asking for the parking lot to be kept clean. Maybe there is a tenant’s group established there who would want to help.  While all this takes time and energy, it can lead to rewards.

But, in Marilyn’s shoes, I would have bagged the little toys and put them in my garbage bin.

Yo! You. Ya, you. It’s me, your planet talking.
That’s right. Me, the planet, speaking. Think I don’t see what’s going on?

You think I’m some inert, unfeeling mass with a bit of magic inside it?
First, I’m not an ‘it’.  I’m a one, and I’m your only one.

You’ve been taking advantage.  I can stay silent no longer.

Next time a natural disaster strikes.  Think of me. Then think of you.

Humans – a gaggle of natural disasters – just this planet’s point of view.  What do I know?

Yo, here’s what I know.  Only humans create waste that doesn’t break down naturally.  All the other creatures here have biodegradable waste practices.  People ... Ouch!  Was that a cigarette butt, a plastic bottle or oil down the sewer? In my current state, you know, sometimes it’s hard to tell, what with you humans bearing down on me with your garbage all the time, my scarred areas have lost some sensitivity.

Do I look like I want my skin plastered with every imaginable piece of your garbage?  Would you stick plastic all over your own face to the point of smothering?  That’s what you do to me with chewing gum.  Now I can hardly breathe.

You think I’m pleased about a gyre of trash swirling in my ocean?  Here’s a message for you direct from the sea.  Mother Nature hates you. My waterways and their dwellers loathe you even more.  Can you tell I’m pretty upset myself?

None of my gifts has received respectful treatment.  Air, water, land, icecaps, forests, mountains – you don’t care about them obviously.  Your kind treats them all very badly.

What will it take, humans?  What will it take to have you respect me?  Just be clean around me and we shouldn’t have any problems. Understood?

I’m telling you, it’s only a matter of time before I will not be able to take it anymore.

What if I turn on you and cease to be?  Happy then?

I have too much information about litter in my head that’s screaming to get out.  I can’t fit it all in my weekly newsletter.*  Every day voluminous stories about the filthy habit that plagues the world pass before my eyes and I bank them for future reference.  But I’m finding I can’t turn over the news fast enough. It’s like litter, the more there is the faster it accumulates. 

Let me give you an example of what I had to edit out of the most recent issue of “Litterland”.  Readers, I’m sure, would be interested to know that under the shadow of a potential polystyrene packaging ban one hundred restaurants in New York City took part in a waste reduction challenge last Tuesday.  Let’s hope NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg is more successful banning foam than he was with super sized soft drinks.  

The idea of product bans has floated over to Portland, Maine where a city committee will be considering curtailment measures for polystyrene and plastic bags on June 19th.  Portland has a green packaging task force, whose recommendations carried by a vote of xx to 6.  Maybe every city should have a green packaging task force.

In the precious space of my precious newsletter, I wasn’t able to tell you about the mindfulness mindset among the folks of Tipperary, Ireland.  The impact of litter on people with disabilities is the focus of bold, front-running, initiative there called “My Litter, My Responsibility.”

http://www.nationalist.ie/lifestyle/entertainment/my-litter-my-responsibility-campaign-launched-in-tipp-town-1-5051562

And in Louisiana, USA, the state awarded Baton Rouge an honour for having trained the most teachers in the state to take the anti-litter message to their classrooms.  One can never underestimate the importance of the classroom as the place to nip littering in the bud.  Young children are attuned to the idea that littering is wrong, but need education and training to put the information into lifelong practice and influence others.

Environmental educators ask students to make choices that result in no litter like packing lunches in all-reusable containers, eating “in” not “out”, using a personal water bottle, not purchasing as many packaged goods.  These are laudable goals and I live by them.  But consumerism is a potent force that makes it tempting for children and their parents to opt for convenience above all.  Kids are kids, and have you seen any schoolyard lately? 

Yes, to not litter may require an alteration to lifestyle.  Part of the training is simply to not toss or throw waste items.  Brain-to-hand coordination.  Most humans have the skill, but society has failed to instill the will.  A study this year by Barclay’s Living Lands found that 9 out of 10 parents who tell children not to litter forget to mention that littering harms the environment. And half of those moms and dads have littered in the presence of these children despite espousing it’s wrong to do so.  Sounds like an addiction, doesn’t it? Like a smoking parent telling a child never to smoke.

In Worcester, UK they don’t believe in pussyfooting.  If football teams continue to litter city-controlled sports fields they could be nullified from qualifying for team pitch-for-hire agreements if the city's clean/green councillor has his way.  Play by the rules or you don’t play here at all.  Brilliant! 

* Subscribe to This Week In “Litterland” for your weekly, worldly eye-to-the-ground report. www.litterpreventionprogram.com