Am I bovvered?
April 1st 2007

My dog ate my homework' could easily be among the lamest excuses ever; used to spare idle children from the wrath of their teacher. But ENCAMS,the charity behind the Keep Britain Tidy campaign, believes the results of its latest research into why people litter,have produced some (un)worthy challengers to the mantle

How does 'littering is a British tradition' or 'if I didn't litter it would be putting street cleaners out of a job'grab you? Believe it or not, these corkers were among the justifications litter droppers gave researchers when asked why they ditched their cigarette ends or sweet wrappers on our pavements.

Admittedly these extreme views are held by a minority, but nevertheless the 'People who litter' report has revealed a few surprises on why people litter, when and how.

In the report the littering public are categorised into six different groups depending on when, where and how they litter. The largest category is the 'Beautifully Behaved'who make up 43% of the littering population. Their favoured items to throw on the ground are apple cores, fruit peelings and small pieces of paper. The majority don't see this as wrong.

Quite smug about their behaviour, they take pride in where they live and have been brought up not to drop litter. They blame poor parenting as the biggest cause of littering.

The next lightest litter droppers are called 'Guilty'and make up 10% of the litter dropping public. More likely to be women, they know littering is wrong and feel guilty when doing it, but find carrying their rubbish around inconvenient so … will be as discreet as possible when littering (even going so far as to pretend they are tying their shoe laces).

The 'Blamer' category, most likely to consist of men, does not take responsibility for littering. Instead they accuse the council for inadequate bin provision and fast food joints and manufacturers for giving them too much packaging. They constitute 9% of litterers.

They think that people who litter are lazy, but admit if there isn't a bin

nearby or the nearest is overflowing, then they will throw rubbish on

the streets.

'Justifiers'make up 25% of litterers and are mainly responsible for dropping chewing gum and cigarette butts in the streets. Their reason for littering is "everyone else is doing it", and like the 'Blamers' the lack of bins are the cause for their moderate to heavy levels of littering.

The fifth and sixth segments - 'Life's too short and Am I bothered?' – have been merged together to make one group. In total they comprise 12% of the litter dropping population and drop the most litter.

The research shows that both have a complete disregard for the consequences of their littering. But people in the 'Life's too short' group are aware that dropping litter is wrong but have more important things to worry about. Whereas 'Am I bothered?' are oblivious of the consequences of dropping litter, and those few that are aware, don't care.

Neither group feels guilty if they are caught dropping litter and won't pick it up. In fact, some are aggressive towards anyone who asks them to. But to illustrate their blatant double standards, they admitted that they would consider it rude if someone dropped rubbish in front of them!

Armed with this research, ENCAMS is ready to target its campaigns to change public behaviour to littering more effectively.The environmental charity will continue to encourage people to ditch their dirty ways and give guidance to local authorities. The full report is available to order or download from www.encams.org

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