A blog provides an opportunity to rant openly and unfiltered.  It can serve as a dumping ground for my teeth-grinding frustrations, a place to share my sentiments about littering and its wrongful place in our world.  No sense stewing on my personal beefs when I can serve them up to sympathetic readers, so here are some of my seasonal pet peeves:

Mowing over litter - municipalities do it. Private contractors do it. And willfully blind people in homes do it and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why they cut the grass without combing out the litter first. Instead of one item now these poorly skilled mowing magicians have turned each piece of loose litter into dozens of shreds. The problem here is twofold.  1) People who believe in clean vistas have ten times as much work to do when removing the litter. 2) The litter fragments travel more easily into sewer grates and into water systems, exactly the last place we want them. Microplastics cocktail, anyone?

If I had one wish it would be for mandatory litter removal prior to mowing grass.

Now that vaccine mandates are trending, let's have an anti-litter mandate, something I’ve wanted to see for many years.  i.e. People told if they litter there are consequences.  If caught by dedicated environmental officers, they could choose: pay a fine or go to Litter School to learn the reasons for not littering and how not to litter. They’d sign a pledge not to litter. How embarrassing would it be to have it known that you had to attend Litter School to avoid paying a fine because you didn't know enough to use a garbage can or an ashtray? 

If education proves hopeless, a second offence would command a fine. Mandating people not to litter would do an enormous amount of good for the environment since littering is identified worldwide as a monumental problem.

This takes me to my next bugaboo.  Public apathy, people who don’t help.  Even if you don’t litter, if you don’t pick up, sadly, you are part of the littering problem. Do get out there and volunteer because that’s an essential part of the remedy. I used to be one of those people who felt I had no obligation to pick up someone else's discards because I myself never litter. Then I realized that this attitude posed a barrier to solving the litter problem because to not pick up actually compounds it. Litter begets litter.

And lastly, let me rail about something that happened to my friend and her octogenarian husband at a children’s splash pad in Toronto. They’re out for a walk and there’s no activity save for two casual city workers sitting on a bench doing nothing. There is litter on the site. My friend observes litter and rightly and politely suggests that the employees put the strewn items in the city-provided receptacle on site to tidy the play area.  They refuse because they say doing so could give them COVID-19. False. When told that's not factual, they counter that they are “entitled to their beliefs”.  Then they say it’s someone else’s job - false again, in my view. Yes, it is their job. No, they can’t get COVID from touching inanimate objects.
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Any employee of the city of Toronto, particularly in parks and recreation, has an obligation to live by an anti-litter mandate and pick up litter as part of his or her job on public property.  These two divas left it to an 80-year-old man to pick up the stuff. Mr. Mayor, can’t you do something about employee education and spur some action on the mowing-over-litter bedlam? As a start toward a real litter strategy? Please? 

Responses to litter have to be all-involving and the problem communicated well across the board, including by the media. In a future post I'll talk about media as an ally in the fight against litter and how they can improve their coverage.

In this rapidly evolving COVID-19 world, hand washing and other clean behaviors have been drawn into sharp focus.

Worldwide, strategies to conquer this new and highly infectious disease rely on the global citizenry to follow strict rules in a fight to eradicate it.

Looking around at the landscape just here in Toronto and the utterly tragic proportions of litter revealed by  spring, one wonders how we will wrestle down the coronavirus when we as a society can’t even manage to stop the littering habit.

To not litter is simpler than washing your hands, easier than not touching your face, doesn’t involve physical  distancing.

Everywhere, health officials are dispensing advice day to day, hour to hour.

We’d like to hear them say: no spitting, no throwing your cups, cans, bottles and lids, nor straws, no wipes and tissues on the ground, no cigarette butts or chewing gum dropped or flicked, and, though it has nothing to do with littering, let's add, no blowing smoke in other people's air space at this time of aerosol and airborne disease transmission and awareness.  In short, use a bin. It’s a simple rule, one the health spokespeople should recite at every given opportunity, especially in an era that's reminding us to be hygienic and keep clean.

In response to the City report released on a single use and takeaway plastic reduction strategy.

Date: May 18, 2021
​To: Chair and Members of Infrastructure and Environment Committee
Re: Response to IE22.6 Single-Use and Takeaway Items Reduction Strategy - Stage 1

Please use the communications opportunity in the Voluntary Measures Program to focus in part on littering. 

In “Attachment 8 - Moving Forward: Stage 1 of the Reduction Strategy – Encourage Voluntary Measures in 2021”  I think it was either an oversight or a mistake that ‘litter’ and ‘littering’ are not referenced with respect to promotion, outreach and engagement communications. Along with encouraging consumers and establishments to switch over to reusable alternatives for straws, cups, bags, etc. the city must also encourage responsible disposal of the commonly littered items, such as those identified in: Attachment 2 - Presentation from September 24, 2019 Public Event "Addressing Single-use and Takeaway Items in Toronto" and Attachment 3A-3E - Single-use and Takeaway Items Reduction Strategy - Phase Two Public Consultation Report and Activities.

As well I’d also like to note that chewing gum and cigarette filters are also single-use plastic items prevalent in the litter stream although not identified for the purposes of this report.

As part of the communication plan to businesses, I believe it is imperative that the City recite and underscore the importance of complying with the bylaw applying to keeping storefronts and retail properties free of litter. I attach several recent photos from one of Scarborough’s local supermarkets, which houses an extensive take-away food counter, as an example of single use plastics and irresponsible disposal gone awry. This messy example of a grocery store parking lot is not unique to this one retail establishment.  The problem is endemic.

As the focus turns to the Single-Use and Takeaway Items Reduction Strategy there needs to be a program, preferably multilingual, that deals with enforcing property cleanliness standards on businesses. 

Citizens who care about the degraded state of our littered city are long past the point of being fed up over inattention to this and the lack of enforcement and communication.  Now there is an opportunity to rectify a shortcoming.

Since resources are being recommended at this juncture to support an outreach and communication plan, it should be simple to stress expectations of site cleanliness to the constituencies, whether residents or businesses.

Appendix 8 did not include the words ‘litter’ or ‘littering’ yet they are among the biggest complaints and hazards associated with single use plastic items in land and marine environments. For some reason the subject of litter is often overlooked or downplayed to the point of omission.

Just as with the development of outdoor smoking bylaws where public health policies made no provision for strategies to deal with the increase in cigarette butt littering outdoors, I see this report sidestepping littering when it could be embracing it as part of the behavior change communications package being suggested.

Since the goal is to target the food and restaurant industry it makes sense to incorporate litter prevention/reduction information into the messaging.
I support a voluntary approach to start and hope it enjoys the same success as water on request in restaurants saw in the 1980s.
I support discouraging products labelled compostable and biodegradable, since some minds will construe that to mean the stuff magically disappears so it’s okay to litter it.
If Council approves a Recognition Program for businesses that adopts voluntary measures to reduce single-use and takeaway items, I think this should also include a consideration of and ranking for the tidiness of their outdoor space and their adherence to waste management and litter laws. 
I think the city should adopt a holistic approach to this program across all city departments so as to leverage communication channels of other City divisions to impart consistent messaging.
As an example of skirting around the discussion of litter, I refer to a direct quote from the report, which says: “... efforts to support a green recovery Public space and streetscape audits will also be performed to quantify the amount of single-use and takeaway items found in the public realm.”
 
‘Items found in the public realm’ could easily have been replaced with ‘items littered in the public realm’ to build on the idea that these items generally aren’t landing there by accident but are due to someone’s carelessness or disrespect of a bylaw.

It would be my hope that in the design of communications, input from a reputable concern specializing in litter science will be used, and if an outside advertising agency is employed for this project that they will seek the appropriate expertise and information to include for creating the best possible reminder about handling waste and not littering it, and reducing use of and dependency on single use plastics.

The VMP is being recommended to “target materials which are known to contribute to street litter and marine litter” so it only makes sense for the city and Council to use this moment as an opportunity to include an effective anti-litter message in its pending communications.
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On that note it would be great to see this committee of Infrastructure and Environment put the topic of Litter Updates on its agenda routinely to give this entire issue the focused attention it deserves.
These are my comments.  Thank you.

Sheila White
Editor/Publisher, This Week In “Litterland”

Since we're in a pandemic the news was not entirely unexpected.  The decision to cancel this year's Litter Day of Action for the second straight year came late.  I'm sure everyone was hoping Ontario would be in better shape by now.  It's not that the whole day is cancelled, just the cleanup part of it, which is really what the event is all about.  Here's how the Ministry worded it:

"We are pleased to let you know the 2021 Provincial Day of Action on Litter is taking place on Tuesday, May 11, 2021.  In light of the Stay-at-Home order and the province’s ongoing efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19, this year the Day of Action on Litter will focus on raising awareness of the impacts of waste in the environment, and what actions every Ontarian can do to prevent, reduce and divert waste, right at home. The ministry will not be promoting cleanups for May 11, 2021 out of an abundance of caution.
We invite you to join our digital efforts by sharing content on social media to profile what your organization and members of your community are doing to prevent, reduce or divert waste in your communities, and what local residents can do to get involved. We also invite you to update calendars to note the virtual Day of Action on Tuesday May 11, 2021. We will follow-up in the near future with a Partner Guide that will include sample social media content, shareable graphics and ideas to inspire individual actions on litter and waste. Our www.ontario.ca/actONlitter page will also be updated in the near future to reflect the 2021 Day of Action. So please stay tuned! The ministry’s digital campaign leading up to the Day of Action will launch soon - please keep an eye out for sharable social posts on the ministry’s social media accounts and follow the #actONlitter hashtag!    If you have any questions, please reach out to actONlitter@ontario.ca.
The Provincial Day of Action on Litter Team, Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks.

I'm pleased to say that I have quarterly meetings with the Ministry now to check-in on how the litter file is progressing. Improving the litter web page and mentioning it more pronouncedly were among my suggestions.  This Ministry welcomes feedback, so I emailed my thoughts about the cleanup cancellation to my contacts there.  Here are some excerpts:

"I take heart that one of these years we'll have ourselves a real Day of Action. In the meantime we can all give thought on how to advance litter prevention throughout the year in a more robust way aside from cleanups.  

"For example, it would really great if Minister Yurek could have a word with his counterpart at the Ministry of  Transportation to put more frequent litter messages and PSAs in front of the public, on the LED highway signage, for example. Imagine the impact those would have on the giant new advertising boards installed on Highway 401.  With cleanups cancelled and a pandemic-related increase in roadside litter clearly evident, promoting a Keep Ontario Clean with a properly tailored litter prevention message throughout the year would be helpful, not to mention smart. 

"While I do appreciate the potential liability issues that people in government positions must consider, I continue to pick up litter.  I see no reason to change my established practice. 

"I continue to advocate that people both not throw down and do pick up. As a researcher I have seen zero documentation to indicate that there is any risk to litter picking, a solo, outdoor activity. However, I did take note when that myth first began to surface in 2020, much to my chagrin. Any suggestion that the coronavirus is transmitted through inanimate objects has been roundly debunked now by the Center for Disease Control.  Take care, all."

There are two types of people:  people who litter and people who don’t.

For each type there are two categories: active and passive.

There are two kinds of littering: intentional and accidental.

Let’s focus on the intentional littering. Nothing much we can do to control cargo spills, catastrophic weather events, refugee migrations, the unintentional events when garbage can escape to litter the land and seas.

But there’s a whole lot we can do to control the kind of littering that’s deliberate, encompassing anything from a dropped or flicked cigarette butt or spat piece of chewing gum to the takeout packaging, beverage and coffee cups left behind or hurled on the go.  The first and most obvious thing to say here is, just don’t do it.

Non-litterers do not litter. Full stop.  They dispose of their garbage responsibly and properly.  That’s not to say that they don’t accidentally litter from time to time.  A tissue escaping from a pocket, a paper on the dashboard picked up by the wind and sucked out of the car window, an item that dropped, went wayward, was lost on the ground somewhere – occasionally this will happen to an avowed non-litterer.

The difference between an active non-litterer and a passive non-litterer is that an active type will pick up litter. Passive litterers don’t feel they should have to pick up any litter. They feel that job belongs to the people who put it there.  Their rationale goes like this: “I don’t litter so I don’t see why I should have to pick up someone else’s.”  It might also include a statement that picking up litter is “the city’s job.”

An active non-litterer understands that the only way to solve the littering problem is to pick up after others.  There are several reasons why picking up is important.  One, clean spaces are less likely to attract littering because “litter begets litter.” Two, being seen picking up litter is a direct way to influence the thinking and behaviors of others.  This is the idea behind role modeling, that positive, active and visible engagement is influential.

Now let’s talk about the people who litter. The lowest ranked and least respected type is the active litterer.  Fortunately, this group comprises a vast minority of people who litter – about 12 per cent.  Not only do they litter and not care, active litterers would likely rudely refuse to correct their mistake if asked.  They embrace a range of chronic littering behaviors from routinely leaving their take away packaging in the restaurant parking lot, or at the roadside, to wholesale dumping activities.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, most in this group are young males.

Passive litterers are people who litter when it hampers their convenience or cramps their comfort.  Lack of bins is one common excuse they use for littering.  But unlike their active counterparts, the passive litterers will pick up litter when called on it. When their littering is pointed out to them, they will correct their behavior, then give one of several pat reasons that people give for their littering. They might apologize also.
It is a hopeful sign that 88 per cent of people who litter are willing to correct their littering when asked in most circumstances.  At the very least they will hear critical feedback and allow it to register.

That’s why it is so important to speak up about littering in a nice way when you see it happening. Odds are, the person who litters will be embarrassed into compliance.  Dare we dream that they learn something indelibly and accept that littering is wrong?

Now to the final leg of this theory: to solve littering we need everyone to move up a rung.

If you’re an active non-litterer, be more active. Pick up more. Report problems more. Speak up and teach more.

If you’re a passive non-litterer, make the incremental shift to active.  Join a clean team. Pick up litter once in a while.

If a passive litterer, deem yourself a passive non-litterer: look after your own disposables responsibly. Use a bin. That’s all. You don’t have to pick up litter, just don’t create any.
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And to the hardcore, active litterer, why not consider graduating to the role of a passive litterer?  You may not be ready to use a bin or litter bag full time yet, but you could start using one when asked instead of getting angry.

This is my solution for lowering the rate of littering, which hovers around 40%.
 

January 20, 2020
 
To The Mayor & Members of the Executive Committee
City of Toronto
Toronto City Hall
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RE:    Agenda Item EX12.1, Jan. 23, 2020   Ravine Strategy Implementation

Dear Mayor and Councillors,

I am pleased to see a report advocating action on litter and invasive species in ravines. I wish to make a few points with respect to this.

Cleaning up is one of a package of actions required to prevent litter.  Using volunteers, cleaning up is the least expensive part of litter prevention. Adding a focused staff effort to the upkeep of ravines is commendable and needed, but what then?

The other planks of litter prevention are more costly and complex because they deal with behavioural change.  They include ongoing messaging, enforcement, a year-round plan, implementation of the existing fine structure, bin maintenance.

With respect to invasive species, in my neighbourhood alone, Dog-Strangling Vine has taken over portions of our local woodlot and has severely contaminated a number of private, commercial and public properties. Dog-Strangling Vine (DSV) is a known threat to the Monarch Butterfly.

I was able to stuff 30 oversized garbage bags of DSV cut down from these properties and dispose of them at no cost thanks to help from our city parks supervisor, but this doesn’t begin to make a dent on the overall problem. Awareness of this provincially identified invasive species of plant is very, very low.  Toronto needs to alert residents on the management of Dog-Strangling Vine and other invasive species.

In my opinion the City lacks communication on these issues.  There is no proactive body looking to deal with littering as a specific social problem that needs to be addressed.  There is a lack of programs and information that could assist individuals and community groups in their desire to keep communities clean and free of unwanted, invasive varieties of non-native plants.

I have several suggestions for building on the advocacy that is inherent in the staff report.  It is my hope that there are some anti-litter champions on Toronto Council who will move these ideas forward as formal recommendations.  Namely,                                                                                                         

• Look into using camera technology for litter law enforcement on the roads,
• Use fines collected for litter prevention and abatement,
• Study the formation of a broader education and enforcement effort, a blitz by police, for example, or patrolling green wardens,
• Provide stock information through website and council member newsletters,
• Adopt an email litter prevention tag line, such as “Please help keep our City Litter Free”, a slogan found at the end of all emails from Brantford Deputy Mayor, Councillor  John Utley,
• Investigate forming a Mayor’s Litter Cabinet, involving citizens, staff, retailers and product makers, to address litter prevention on an ongoing basis,
• Develop ways and means to make it free and easy for citizens to dispose of litter and invasive plants they collect,
• Develop information on how to abate Dog-Strangling Vine and distribute it to community groups citywide.
  
  

I am a litter prevention specialist. To my knowledge I am the only entity registered to lobby Members of Council on the topic of litter. I produce a free, weekly newsletter “This Week In “Litterland”, which most of you have chosen to receive. I welcome the opportunity to discuss littering and DSV with individual Members, field questions and respond to requests for information from you, your staff and constituents at any time.
Thank you for taking the time to read this submission and consider the ideas presented.

​Sincerely,
 
Sheila White

There will be no shortage of people to call me a killjoy. Go ahead, tell me to a suck a lemon. I’m still going to say what I have to say about the Toronto Raptors delicious NBA victory and the celebrations that followed.

“Another excuse for people to act like idiots” is a phrase I’m stealing from my neighbour who heard it from a friend who was describing this sporting event’s effect on fan behaviour.

Some of the customs associated with the delirium of reverie have no place in the 21st Century.
 
The endless exhausting of car fumes as vehicles parade through the downtown streets, for example.  No one’s thinking about the climate crisis, but no doubt we should be. There are bylaws against excessive idling in Toronto – one minute maximum. With all we know about the heating of the globe, idling should be passé, at the very least frowned upon.  But our sports team just won a trophy! Who cares about carbon emissions at a time like this?  Ditto the environment.   People leave their garbage strewn everywhere. 

Sometimes celebrations involve polluting tickertape, balloon releases, fireworks, glitter and confetti, all emblems of another era.  Cleanup tasks are enormous afterwards. While Ontario claims to be working on an anti-litter strategy and Canada is trying to link litter prevention to its announced ban on some single-use plastic items, you’d never know it judging from the mess caused by exuberant revelers after the Toronto Raptors clinched its historic first NBA Championship.

The day after the big win, areas of downtown had to be closed to undertake the massive cleanup, and at what cost? Taxpayers and the environment both pay a price. Yet, from police spokespeople during the debriefing came not a mention, not a reminder, not even a breath devoted to saying littering is a crime.  They focused on the good news part of the story -- that there were no melees, no injuries.  I give Toronto fans credit for that, but when I review footage of a non-stop, snaking line of slow moving vehicles I can’t shake the stupidity of dumb humans.

When I ask myself in incredulous fascination, ‘What planet am I on?’ the answer is inescapable, “the only planet we’ve got.” 

Imagine this: An anti-litter campaign married to a big-time sporting event in one of the world’s greatest cities. 
 
The NBA Championship will hit Toronto this week for the first time starting Thursday night.  Is there no more natural a union for litter prevention than with a sport that involves putting something in a basket? 
 
McDonald's tried a two-week advertising campaign in Germany some years back in connection with world soccer and litter: Same idea, different sport.  It reaped results, a 62 per cent increase in bin usage over the course of the promotion. 
 
Scotland linked its national anti-litter initiative to the 2014 Commonwealth Games it hosted in Glasgow.
 
For Toronto, Ontario, where littering behaviors are prolific and, although unlawful, frequently go unchecked, this is an opportunity to target a demographic associated with littering: ages 18 to 35, and smokers.
 
An anti- litter campaign/contest would benefit everyone. Clean city, great environment, lower costs, higher property values, less crime.
 
The Toronto Raptors’ championship run has all the right elements for a superb awareness push: sports celebrities, corporate sponsors, a major league with an established fan base and social media channels, TV opportunities, community engagement possibilities, and an unbeatable theme, a natural tie-in: “Put It In The Basket”.   It presents the chance to involve partners like beverage, fast food, confectionery, packagers and others whose products contribute to the litter stream.

Other places hold little prevention contests, everything from trash can-painting for kids in Montana to car giveaways in Texas.
 
Texas gave away a car as part of a statewide anti-litter sweepstakes. University of Northern Tennessee student Justin Truby, of Denton, received the keys to his 2016 Ford Fusion SE Hybrid during a Dallas Cowboys - Washington Redskins game in front of a hometown stadium crowd in Arlington on January 3. It was a big deal, done to mark 30 years of “Don’t Mess With Texas”, a celebrated anti-litter campaign.
 
Encouraging people not to litter during the NBA finals in the City of Toronto would be akin to a slam-dunk for litter prevention, which doesn't receive the attention it deserves for a problem of its size. 

I couldn’t stand the sight a moment longer. So I took 90 minutes today to clean up a heavily littered area at the edge of my community in Toronto.  I grew sick of seeing plastic flapping in the trees and garbage all along the fence line and boulevard every time I drove by.

​There’s a bridge, a Highway 401 overpass, at the beginning of the strip of ground I cleaned. Now, when I say clean, I mean to the micro-level, every scrap captured no matter how small. As an experienced volunteer litter picker, very little escapes me. I didn’t go after cigarette butts. That would have required a separate endeavor altogether, there were so many of them.  Cellophane, foils and cigarette boxes were fair game though. Systematically I separated items that can be recycled from those that cannot. I collected other litter in a reusable sack and made three trips to the city litter bin near the transit shelter some distance away to deposit each load.

I had a big yellow garbage bag on the go too, stuffed it full of wayward large plastics, remnant plastic, coffee cups, tissues, paper wrapping and packing ties, cigarette boxes, snack and candy wrappers ...  You get the picture. This oversized large bag I hauled back home with me and I’ll use a pricey bag tag to legally place it out for the next curbside collection.  A great system, isn’t it, where a person has to pay to get rid of garbage not of their own making as well as donate the volunteer hours to clean it up in the first place?

Back at the scene, abutting the base of the bridge, is a narrow strip of land running parallel to the highway behind a chain link fence.  Next to it is a parcel of land behind a broken down wooden fence.  The property doesn’t appear to be part of anyone’s backyard and it is awash with garbage that has come to rest there either through accidental or deliberate actions.  The area behind the fence did not receive the benefit of my tidying.  In my mind I could see this orphaned and neglected parcel converted into a beautiful open space and garden once cleared of its considerable trash.

The Province of Ontario owns the strip of land beside the bridge. I was able to get the private company that cleans up this section of the highway to do a special litter pick at this location last summer.  It was next to impossible to get it done and I was told it was a one-time-only deal because such cleanups were over and above the terms of the company’s contract with the Ministry of Transportation.  A ministry investigation determined the litter was not emanating from the highway above and concluded the area was adequately shielded from litter from raining down by a tall fence bordering that section of the highway.  I was told the origin of the area’s litter was at ground level, meaning from homes and businesses, passing cars, trucks, and pedestrians.

I wonder what would be the most effective way to convince them to take proper care of their waste and always use a “garbage can”?