Littering

After watching the video, what is one thing you learned or didn't know before watching?

In Boston, people have made an effort to keep the sidewalk litter-free. In doing so, they created a campaign named Neat Streets, similar to a project that was done in London, England. The anti-littering campaign is counting on interactivity to encourage smokers to become more environmentally aware. Mayor Marty Walsh stated, “This smart and innovative effort incorporates a public-polling process to engage our residents and visitors in protecting our environment” (par. 4).

7 Helpful Tips

Keep a litter bag in your car and hang on to litter until you find a garbage receptacle
Make sure your trash cans have tight-fitting lids
Share with others the proper way to dispose of trash
Put papers in a paper bag before placing them in your recycling bin
Look for ways to beautify your neighborhood and community, including landscaping and repairing fences. Attractive, maintained neighborhoods are littered less and research shows that they are usually safer, too
In your workplace, provide plenty of containers for garbage and recyclables
Ask business owners to keep loading docks clean and check dumpsters every day to make sure they are securely closed

What's happening in Boston?

The first act on the problem they made was moving the age to buy cigarettes to 21 years old and enacted a ban on smoking in city parks that carries a $250 fine for violators. This is the first step cities need to take around the world to let people know littering comes with a consequence, and if not obeyed, problems in the environment are continually increasing. An effort in the city of Boston is being made, it’s up to the people to make a change.

Keep America Beautiful is an organization out of the United States that helps communities around America with research and the bigger picture of the problem, littering. In their 2020 research campaign, for the first time, they measured litter along waterways in addition to roadways. According to the organization, “it estimated the amount of litter along U.S. waterways and found it exceeds the problem along roadways (25.9 billion pieces of litter versus 23.7 billion). Across roadways and waterways, about 39% of litter is believed to be made of plastic” (par. 9).