5 April
Dear Andy Street,
Where I live in Walsall, we have a constant and growing problem with litter. It feels like almost every street, every bit of green, is choked up with everything from cans to fly-tipped freezers. I see the same issue all around the region. There's an area of grass by the house where my grandparents lived and I clean it up often, but give it a couple of days and it's full of cans and bags of dog poo all over again. In the past, I've asked for help from the local council, but they are slow to respond and claim they don't have enough budget to keep up with street cleaning, and perhaps more importantly, council cleaning feels like a sticking plaster for what is clearly a cultural problem.
There is a local community volunteer litter-picking group that the council oversees, and I have recently joined them, but from the outset, it feels like we are a frustrated minority, forever chasing the tail of another (perhaps larger) minority who create the litter, through what is known in economics as a broken window problemāour efforts are solely to fix something because someone else needlessly broke itāand that parable is employed as the very demonstration of unproductive activity.
But, instead of just treating the symptoms, how about addressing the cause? I thought about different strains of education and enforcement, from leafleting to applying for a grant for signs and CCTV, but I'm not convinced that many of them would be effective. I'd prefer of course that folk clean up after themselves because they love and take pride in their local area, rather than because they fear consequences.
I do think the fear side of the motivational coin has shifted over time: once, folk would fear to litter because others would think ill of them or berate them; now, folk fear to call out people who litter because abuse is the likely response. Quite a melting pot of cultural factors have merged into the milieu in which social responsibility has subducted beneath marginal convenience. The folk who litter do so because it's marginally more convenient than taking it home, just as those who wouldn't wear masks during even the worst of the pandemic did so because wearing masks is marginally less comfortable than not bothering, and so on. This individual tendency to optimise marginal convenience creates a ātragedy of the commonsā in so many areas, where individual actions have a negative effect on society. Iāve spent a lot of time thinking about how to change this, how to encourage people to care and take responsibility.
It seems that for folk to value their environment, they first have to notice it, to feel what it is doing for them. Perhaps then it seems a slightly less convenient idea to degrade it. But then there is a challenge in figuring out how to encourage that kind of awareness. The Keep Britain Tidy organisation has done admirable work over the decades to run initiatives and create advertising to discourage littering, but the government withdrew their central grant in 2010, so they have been forced to do their best with independent funding and partnerships.
It seems to me that the government absolutely should have a stake in influencing civic responsibility, in facilitating and encouraging the kind of culture that sees people respect and take care of their local environment. To this end, I was pleased that the government launched its national litter strategy in 2017, ostensibly aimed at improving awareness and education as well as enforcement and provision of cleaning and bins. However, in practice, I have witnessed zero visible improvement in the five subsequent years and in fact, the situation appears to be getting worse by the year.
So what more could be done? I am open to your ideas on this, but I would start with four suggestions:
1. The West Midlands should set an example with a regional advertising campaign to discourage litter and encourage people to take pride in their local environment. This could encompass radio, billboards and other formats.
2. The region should also launch a community gardening scheme with funding attached for people to apply for grants to beautify their local communities. This could include decorative planting as well as community food projects in shared spaces. Such schemes would benefit community cohesion, encourage local pride and support wellbeing, discouraging littering in the process.
3. Citizenship has been back on the National Curriculum as a subject in schools since 2002. However, the issue of littering appears to be covered only in the briefest passing. For it to sink in, the topic should be strongly presented, then reiterated throughout school. Regular, practical sessions where children are taken out on walks to appreciate their local area and pick litter would reinforce the requisite awareness and responsibility. There is presently an Eco-Schools project that operates on a partial and voluntary basis, but a stronger mandatory curriculum component would surely effect a more positive influence at this crucial stage in citizensā lives.
4. The government should restore central funding to the Keep Britain Tidy organization, in recognition and support of its longstanding commitment to fostering civic responsibility and reducing litter. The charity ran highly influential TV campaigns in the 70s and was able to do so again in 2011 with Defra funding; restoring funding would allow it to continue this work.
As mayor of the West Midlands, as our advocate and ambassador, you have the power and influence to effect real change on this crucial matter of regional and local pride and transform our society and our community spaces for the better. I would be very grateful for your consideration of supporting these proposals and for any other thoughts you may have on the issue.
Yours sincerely,
Christopher Crompton
Christopher Crompton