A letter to the editor of a community newspaper from Litter Prevention Program founder, Sheila White:
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.
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.
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