Pass around your local town or city very early in the dawn and you will encounter an army of applied road sweepers out and about tidying up the mess left from all the partying of the previous night. It’s a common early morning setting, particularly the beeping noise! We don’t really give litter a consideration as we feel keeping the streets clean is not our job.

Nevertheless, there is a sometimes imperceptible yet fundamental impact litter plays on human psychology. We are more likely to believe an area is less well policed if litter is lying around, and thus criminals see rubbish as a potential signal for an opportunity of a mugging or robbery. The same sign instills some fear in other individuals who are concerned they may be passing into a more risky location and are concerned about possibly being attacked.

There’s also the impact on the visual attraction of an area. Litter strewn about can give the appearance of a neighbourhood looking a bit derelict even if it’s just been trashed by party revellers from the previous night. This can damage the reputation of a neighbourhood if people are visiting the area for this specific time and only see it in its messy state.

There’s no reason to drop litter if there are unfilled rubbish bins around the neighbourhood. If there are no bins, or the rubbish bins that are there are brimming, this is a problem to take up with the local council. Throwing rubbish has a negative impact on everybody.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 at 8:53 pm and is filed under Forums etc., Political Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.