Written evidence submitted by Bolton and District Civic Trust [LIT 090]
Organisation & Author
The Organisation: Bolton & District Civic Trust
This was founded in 1964. From its early years it had 11 sub-committees, including ones on Litter, and Environmental Education. The B&D Civic Trust has a wealth of experience relevant to the subject of this inquiry. It has consistently championed stewardship of the built & natural environment, including engagement with schools and promoting litter campaigns as well as having organised untold number of litter picks.
The Author: Richard A Shirres, MSc (Applied Environmental Science), BSc (Civil Eng.), C.Eng, MICE,
is a chartered engineer with more than four decades of wide engineering experience in the UK and overseas and as an environmental scientist, with a long interest in sustainable development and urban planning. He has served on the B&D Civic Trust Executive Committee for 17 yrs and is currently Chairman. In the early 1990s he was active in Agenda 21 on Waste and the Built & Natural Environment Committees where Litter and how it was viewed by different ethnicities was studied. The author has been a Primary School Governor and active in various stewardship campaigns but has also studied delivery of Eco-schools (ie. Environmental management led by pupils). He is married to an Australian and is conversant with the major success in South Australia of their anti-litter campaign of the 1980s.
Executive Summary
The scale of this country’s litter problem is not a cosmetic inconvenience. It is an expression of society’s care of both the natural and man-made environment. Toleration of a littered environment is highly detrimental to realising a culture of stewardship and how we should be managing waste. This is crucial if we are to live sustainably. The problem of litter and fly-tipping will not be addressed effectively without strategic measures being taken to modify behaviours and stimulate critical thinking amongst citizens about the urban environment.
In order to tolerate litter, and particularly fly-tipping, it is argued that the critical observational faculties have to be relaxed. Ultimately, this only helps bread an indifference to the appearance of neighbourhoods and town and a lack of engagement in the environment. Such indifference is not conducive to promoting public participation.
The quantity and nature of litter has changed considerably in the last 60 years. Today, the vast majority of litter is plastic based and does not disappear, but only breaks down in size. Its persistence not only undermines a care ethos but litter and fly-tipping impact on wildlife both on land and in rivers, coastal waters and out in the open sea. Despite Government policy promoting biodiversity, many key wildlife indicators are failing and litter is one contributory factor. However, the precise nature and scope of this impact needs to be better understood.
Litter contributes to the aesthetic, cultural and environmental degradation of people’s living. The most crucial area to prioritise is education, at all levels. A focus on litter, by various means, can have a transformative effect on people’s wider critical appreciation of and involvement in their environment. In schools, litter is best looked at as part of an environmental management systems’ approach, as applied using the Eco-schools scheme. How this scheme can also facilitate curriculum delivery without being a further educational burden is also discussed.
Building children’s capacity to think about and address unsustainable consumption empowers them to take the message home, and can become a most effective means to deliver education to some adults. The importance of the role of children was shown in a transformative campaign waged against litter in South Australia in the 1970s and 1980s, particularly.
This evidence contends that high level political leadership with modest funding to support environmental education and to effect a shift in culture is needed in order to address the ubiquity of litter. This is essential to transform the current situation: one where the seventh richest country on the planet can be viewed as one of the dirtiest countries in western Europe.
Richard A Shirres
Chairman of Bolton & District Civic Trust
C O N T E N T S
Executive Summary
1.0 Introduction
2.0 The Fundamental Problem of Litter and What it Represents
3.0 How the Prevalence of Litter Affects Communities
4.0 The Nature of Litter and Its Environmental Impacts
5.0 Achieving a Cultural Shift Towards Stewardship
6.0 What Can Be an Efficient Role of Local Government
7.0 The Role of the Eco-schools Scheme
8.0 Anti-litter Campaigning in South Australia
9.0 The Strategic Role of Government
10.0 Recommendations
References
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Any dismissal of litter as a cosmetic inconvenience misses the fundamental point about what it denotes about society’s care of the environment, both natural and man-made. More importantly, toleration of a littered environment is highly detrimental to realising a culture of stewardship and how we deal with waste. This is a crucial if communities are to seek to live sustainably.
2.0 The Fundamental Problem of Litter and What it Represents
2.1 Extensive experience of litter picking can leave one in no doubt as to the ubiquity and pervasiveness of the litter problem in many parts of this country. Certainly concerted litter picks can make a big difference to street scenes and urban aesthetics. But in many areas, the scale of the littering can overwhelm, for most of the time, the difference that any occasional litter pick can make. There is a more fundamental problem and one that needs more than just fire-fighting by under-resourced local authorities and excessive reliance on the community-spirited few. A far more strategic approach is needed with leadership at the local level and leadership from central Government.
2.2 Litter is an expression of unsustainable consumption largely by a population with insufficient understanding about the challenges and potential impacts of waste disposal. In many communities the scale of the litter problem is felt too large for any individual to address. Sometimes this perception is not justified but there is an aspect of disempowerment that could be changed by local leadership reinforced by a sense of a national agenda. The ubiquity of litter suggest these are mostly lacking or inadequate.
3.0 How the Prevalence of Litter Affects Communities
3.1 In order to tolerate litter, and even fly-tipping, the critical observational faculties have to be relaxed. Ultimately, this breads an indifference to the appearance of neighbourhood and town and a lack of engagement in the environment. We certainly feel this within our local civic trust where interest in the built environment has noticeably dimmed in recent decades whilst littering seems to have increased to the extent it is tolerated in many areas. The very persistence of litter seems to undermine a care ethos. This can only be counter productive in efforts to promote public participation around the built environment.
4.0 The Nature of Litter and Its Environmental Impacts
4.1 The quantity and nature of Litter has changed considerably in the last 60 years. Historically most forms were inherently degradable. Crisp packets were cellophane, bottle tops were metal, ‘pop’ bottles were glass and ‘worth’ recycling, wrappers were thin aluminium foil and paper, and sweets came in paper bags. Today, instead, the vast majority of litter is plastic based and does not readily disappear, but only breaks down in size.
4.2 The key characteristics of plastic – light weight and durability – make discarded waste plastic an environmental problem. This waste affects terrestrial and fresh-water systems, including by way of entanglement of animals, blocked drainage systems, ecological contamination and aesthetic impacts. Most plastics do break down slowly, measured in years and decades, initially physically into smaller debris. Development of so-called ‘biodegradable’ plastics is still not effective because many contain starch-based binders that result merely in microscopic fragments (Klemchuk, 1990).
4.3 Plastic debris can be transported by wind, sometimes to highly visible but inaccessible places. But most land-based litter, if not collected, ends up being carried by watercourses, rivers and then seaward. In some urban areas, litter is so copious that it can build-up on watercourse & river debris screens and contribute to flood risk. Maintenance for this becomes another burden on the Environment Agency and Lead Local Flood Authorities.
4.4 Comprehensive surveys at the catchment or sub-catchment scale seem difficult to find. One of the most comprehensive derives form California which was conducted by the Algarita Marine Research Foundation (AMRF) (http://www.algalita.org/) . This recorded 81gm per cubic metre of small plastic items in storm water discharges. Between storm events plastic debris, of diverse characteristics, builds up which is then flushed into receiving water bodies. Microscopic particles become carriers (vectors) as they also adsorb persistent organic chemical compounds. This exacerbates pollution problems and the risk of wildlife ingestion of chemicals which become part of the food-chain.
4.5 Understanding the onward transfer of plastic debris within the terrestrial and marine water cycle is challenging but deserves far more research. Sampling high flow events effectively is difficult, passive litter traps within surface drainage systems are readily blocked. Yet the scale of this part of the problem needs to be better understood.
4.6 Litter and fly-tipping have an impact on wildlife both on land and in rivers, coastal waters and out in the open sea where plastics dominate marine debris (UNEP, 2005). Despite Government policy promoting biodiversity, this remains confounded by many key wildlife indicators and litter must be a factor but more research is needed to elaborate on this.
4.7 As well as the work of AMRF, there has been some telling research around the North Sea on the amount of ingested plastic in Northern Fulmars (van Franeker et al, 2005). The majority of these birds were found to be highly contaminated in waters of the North Sea, especially in the sampling between Scotland and to the southern North Sea.
5.0 Achieving a Cultural Shift Towards Stewardship
5.1 A focus on anti-litter campaigns can have a transformative effect on people’s wider appreciation of and involvement in their environment. In schools, litter is best looked at as parts of a systems approach using Eco-schools. This is discussed in more detail below.
5.2 In the early sixties, public service adverts about litter were common. Government has completely moved away from such basic messages. But that is still only the minimum. Society needs to be engaged in a wider dialogue about sustainable consumption. Effective commitment and oversight from central Government is needed for that to be universal.
6.0 What Can Be an Efficient Role of Local Government
6.1 A strategic role is referred to below but at the practical level leadership can be shown on an anti-litter ethos by visits to school to discuss local authority work on waste management and litter. In particular there is a need for effective enforcement.
6.2 The first picture on the front cover shows the steps of one of the finest town hall buildings in the country on a Saturday afternoon The town hall square is all too frequently let out for displays & events. There was no litter clearer in attendance. No sign of additional waste bins and many adults were sat around with children tolerating the litter debris. The second picture shows a scene of fly-tipping which has been tolerated by the local authority for at least seven months to the author’s knowledge. These are examples of the lack of commitment to the issue of litter and fly-tipping.
6.3 Coastal authorities need to champion best practice beach clean ups and monitoring (UNEP/IOC. 2009).
7.0 The Potential of the Eco-schools Scheme in England
7.1 Litter contributes to the aesthetic, cultural and environmental degradation of people’s living. The most crucial area to address is education. Public information adverts can have an important role. But the Eco-schools scheme in schools builds children’s capacity to address wasteful consumption, IF it is delivered correctly, and empowers them to take the message home. This principle was key to the transformative campaign waged against Litter in South Australia in the 1980s.
7.2 The Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation promoting sustainable development through environmental education founded in 1981. Eco-schools is one of FEE’s key programmes and was first promoted in 1994. The programme was developed in response to the need to involve young people in environmental projects at the local level as identified at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development of 1992.
7.3 There are (2009-10 figures) 16,971 primary schools in England serving 4,093,710 pupils. The website http://www.eco-schools.org.uk reports there are 1,403 Green Flag awarded schools (Primary & Secondary) in England. In Scotland, the website http://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/sustainable-development-education/eco-schools reports over 98% of Scotland's local authority schools now participate in Eco-schools, and over 46% of participants have attained the internationally-recognised Green Flag.
7.4 Within Bolton local authority, for example, only about 10% of primary schools have a Green Flag award. Regrettably, I have had mixed success in persuading individual schools to pursue Eco-schools. Ofsted seems to attach little significance to the attainment, whilst teachers and governors are driven by strict school measures. It is all too often seen as a burdensome add-on when matters could be quite different.
7.5 There is little doubt that in England there will be many Green Flag awarded Eco-schools practicing excellence in pupil engagement and integrating environmental management with the curriculum. But from personal & anecdotal experience there seems reason to question how disparate the picture of Eco-schools delivery actually is across the country, either in terms of the limited proportion of schools within any local authority or just how involved and sustained is the pupil’s involvement.
7.6 This should not be taken as a direct criticism of the Keep Britain Tidy group overseeing the award scheme. Resources to deliver the scheme are always constrained because Government has never regarded this other than peripheral to mainstream education. In the late 1990s Bernard Crick’s report on citizenship paid lip service to sustainability. Education for Sustainable development was not really addressed. Nevertheless, there does seem to be a different approach and ethos to Eco-schools in England than that reported internationally.
7.7 This difference is best characterized as a focus on action competence of pupils rather than the attempted English direct approach of behaviour modification against a given template of actions. The action competence approach seeks to develop the pupils’ will and ability to involve themselves in the environmental issues and enables them to form their own criteria for decision making and choice of actions.
7.8 The action competence approach is related to developing a critical, reflective and participatory approach in which the future adult can cope with environmental problems in a democratic way (Mogenson & Mayer, 2005). Pupils are best empowered through Eco-schools where it involves developing the students as critical thinkers. Perhaps too often, and certainly in the author’s experience, a peripheral school eco-committee is set up and pupils are led by teachers through the various hoops towards a Bronze or Silver Eco-schools’ award.
7.9 Eco-schools should be delivered and led by the pupils’ own school council. Yet all too often the school council is established through a ‘beauty’ contest electing popular pupils when instead it is an opportunity to be an inspiring discursive process around citizenship and the environment. With an enthused school council, the Eco-schools becomes part of the school ethos. At every opportunity, the challenges in working towards the Eco-schools award should be used to deliver aspects of the National Curriculum.
7.10 The Eco-schools scheme has never been considered in any strategic sense by Government, partly because it has arrogantly ignored the role of children as key stakeholders. Yet, Eco-schools has the potential to serve the delivery of the National Curriculum through the articulation of issues it addresses, through the mathematical handling of data looked at and through the science and geography of its elements. Only the lack of creative support and facilitation stands in the way of a win-win situation. And that support could be most cost effectively provided by material supplied, or at least overseen, by Government.
7.11 Children educated about sustainable development tend not to litter, are more ready to discourage others and are more likely to take action against it. Education for sustainable development is probably the best way to ensure a litter tolerant culture does disappear in this country.
7.12 There needs to be a Government sponsored strategic review of the potential role of Eco-schools in our education system and how it can serve the country’s development of responsible citizenship and an assessment of how it can be systematically delivered with appropriate funding.
8.0 Anti-litter Campaigning in Australia
8.1 The first Keep South Australia Beautiful (KESAB) anti-litter campaign commenced on the Labour Day weekend 1966. More of its early initiatives are reported here:
http://www.kesab.asn.au/history/ and these chronicle the involvement of schools and children in driving forward the anti-litter initiative over four decades. My wife recalls children upbraiding, from TV slogans, and embarrassing adults for littering in Adelaide. She recalls a transformation in reducing the litter problem.
8.2 South Australia introduced the Container Deposit Legislation (1977) with the aim of reducing litter by encouraging bottle and can recycling. It remains the only state in Australia with this type of legislation.
8.3 Clean Up Australia Day is the most well-known effort by Clean Up Australia. It is held on the first Sunday of March every year, and encourages people to clean up their local areas. Clean Up Australia Day was first held in January 1990 launched by the then Prime Minister, Bob Hawke. More information about the movement is at: http://www.cleanupaustraliaday.org.au/about/
9.0 The Strategic Role of Local & Central Government
9.1 The author has worked extensively in the Middle East and North Africa in areas of poverty and understands the link between poverty and littering. Yet this is one of the richest countries on the planet that can well afford to compensate for the small proportion of deprived wards in the country through taking concerted action. During the Agenda 21 process my own local authority carried out environmental awareness surveys that showed a weak appreciation of environmental issues amongst ethnic minorities. Whether this remains the case and is a factor in littering is uncertain. But clearly, deprived wards across the country need to be targeted on litter and with an agenda about urban stewardship.
9.2 Local civic trusts and societies throughout the country have achieved a great deal since the 1950s but it is clearly not enough. Leadership, firmer policy and funding, albeit modest, is needed both at local and, especially, at Central Government levels. The problem of litter and fly-tipping will not be addressed effectively unless strategic measures are taken to modify behaviours and stimulate critical thinking about the urban environment.
10. Recommendations
a) Government must assume a greater leadership role on litter, on broadcasting anti-litter messages and the advancement of environmental education in schools. The steer must come initially from Government.
b) A strategic review about the role and efficacy of the Eco-schools scheme and how it can be better integrated with the national curriculum objectives is needed.
c) There should be a re-launch of a Government Code of Practice on Litter.
d) Government should promote the targeting of anti-litter campaigns amongst the most 10% deprived wards in the country and local authorities should partner with civic societies to help deliver these.
e) More work by the Environment Agency, in partnership with Natural England and water companies, needs to be done to understand the environmental impact of litter across the country.
References
Mogenson, F. & Mayer, M. 2005. Eco-schools: trends & divergences. A Comparative Study on ECO-school development processes in 13 countries. Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Culture,
Klemchuk, P. 1990. Degradable plastics: a critical review. Polymer Degradation and Stability, 27, 183-202
UNEP. 2005. Marine litter, an analytical overview
UNEP/IOC. 2009. Guidelines on Survey and Monitoring of Marine Litter, Regional Seas Reports and Studies No. 186, IOC Technical Series No. 83. Published March 2009
Van Franeker, J.A. et al. 2005. ‘Save the North Sea’ Fulmar Study 2002-2004: a regional pilot project for the Fulmar-Litter-EcoQO in the OSPAR area. Alterra-rapport 1162
October 2014