Targeting the 'Tidy Litterers'

Targeting the ‘Tidy Litterers’

The environmental ‘behaviour change’ charity, Hubbub, are targeting so-called ‘tidy litterers’ in a new campaign which aims to reduce the amount of litter which ends up in the UK’s rivers and other waterways.

The campaign ‘For Fish’s Sake’ launched last week, and targets people who leave litter on walls, down storm drains, or next to bins, believing that they aren’t littering, because they haven’t thrown the litter on the ground.

But this still causes a problem. Litter that is not disposed of correctly, such as plastic bottles, travel tickets, cigarette butts, and food packaging, finds its way into waterways, and contributes to the staggering 300 tonnes of rubbish that is cleared from the River Thames each year.

Research shows that of 1,000 Londoners, over half admit to putting litter into an already overflowing bin. There are similar figures for the amount of people who have left litter next to a bin or on a wall.

39% of people admit to littering when they are on their own, despite a massive 92% of people reporting in the survey that they thought that littering was wrong.

Giving a gentle reminder to citizens

The campaign is backed by a number of different organisations, and they are trying to engage Londoners in it by providing voting bins in the run up to the general election, and using art installations to remind people of the importance of protecting the city’s waterways.

They are driving home 3 key points:

• Always put litter in a bin, nowhere else
• Pick up any litter seen near a bin
• If a bin is full, find another or take the litter home.

No excuse for litter

Hubbub say that people they speak to say they drop litter as they can’t find a bin nearby. They don’t buy this excuse, however, as in Central London, you’re never more than around 40 metres from a bin. The organisation say that they have witnessed people leaving their empty drinks containers on the side of London Bridge, and they have blown into the river.

People who do these things don’t believe they are littering as they are not dropping it on the floor.

The amount of litter that ends up in the River Thames is increasing. This is a big problem for the 125 different types of wildlife that inhabit the river, who often eat, or get caught up in the discarded rubbish.

Fighting the litter problem

Hubbub has run several anti-littering campaigns across the UK in the last year

Last week, the charity launched its ‘Trashconverter Van’ where members of the public could exchange litter for food, flowers, and hot drinks in the Forest of Dean as part of the #LoveYourForest campaign.

Last year, ran its Neat Streets campaign, which piloted a number of methods aimed at reducing street litter. Over 6 months, litter was reduced by 25%.

In April, it also launched the Square Mile Challenge, which was a partnership with businesses and local authorities in the City of London, aimed at increasing the collection and recycling of coffee cups.