Littering must be stopped

Whoever is responsible, however, it is quite telling that they are most likely to be respectable professionals, who are just too lazy and irresponsible to dispose of their waste properly. This newspaper regularly gets letters from citizens outraged over acts or signs of littering. Yet the very fact that littering is a perennial problem in our society means that such citizens are in a minority. Yet we are sure, if a survey were taken, most persons would deny that they are litterbugs. Perhaps most of them would even believe it.

The problem is that of seeing consequences that are not always obvious. In the minds of most people, a litterbug is someone who throws rubbish anywhere and who does so regularly. They themselves might occasionally — maybe once or twice a week — throw a soft-drink bottle or a KFC box or a candy wrapper on the ground. But they excuse their actions by saying that that one piece of rubbish won’t make a difference. The problem is, when there are a hundred or a thousand people thinking the same way, the garbage collectors end up fighting a losing battle.

The other way people justify littering is by disposing of their rubbish in the bush or the drains. Out of sight, out of mind. Most of the litter on the side of the road is put there by drivers — fling it out of the car and leave it behind. And when the bushes are cleared, or the heavy rains come down, then the consequences are laid bare for all to see. And people may hold their hands up in horror, but they will not change their ways.

In the case of the drivers, the irony is that they throw rubbish out of their vehicles precisely because they don’t want their car or SUV to look dirty. This means that these persons do have a sense of cleanliness — but that sense does not extend beyond their personal territory, such as their cars or homes.

This attitude is the fundamental cause of our littering problem. The citizens of this country do not see its landscape as theirs, nor do they see the abstract entity of the State as their responsibility. If all the rhetoric about being "Trini to the bone" were true, then citizens would instinctively not litter. They would use bins to dispose of their garbage and, if a bin is not readily available, keep their litter in the pockets or hands or vehicles until they can find a bin. The greatest irony in this respect is demonstrated in the Queen’s Park Savannah every year, when patriotic citizens come out to celebrate our independence and simply cast their refuse on the ground as they watch the parade.

So what can be done to battle this problem? Going down to the draconian Singaporean road of harsh punishment for normal littering would probably not work in our culture — although in the case of medical waste, such an approach would be entirely justified. In any case, the argument would be that police officers have more important laws to enforce. Still, there needs to be a public campaign of some sort. Education initiatives appear to have had little or no effect, but perhaps if this were combined with some sort of incentive scheme, we would see an improvement in our surroundings.

And who knows? It is certainly clear that living in a dirty environment contributes to the general disorder of the society. So maybe the psychological effects of living in a clean country might impact positively in other areas.a