With more litter fines being proposed to deter people from littering, is the reward scheme that goverment are proposing goi
ng to work and make us as a nation stop littering?
When discussing this issue in our recent podcast it had also been discovered that children as young as ten could be fined£40 when found littering. We decided that education in schools would be the best way to let children know why they should not litter and what it does to the environment.
There are schemes and organisations in place such as waste watch, that go round to schools and business to educate and advise them on how to be more environmentally friendly. But how effective are they? Talking to my mum who is a teaching assistant at a local primary school where I live, she believes that when they have recyclebot in school talking about recycling and littering the children take on board what it was saying and tend to go home and tells their parents what they have done in school today and they pass on the message that recyclebot initially gave out.
But by telling children not to drop litter and to make sure they recycle the basics such as glass, plastic and paper are they really going to convince their parents to do the same? As not littering and recycling is one of these things that we all know we should do but is not always possible, for example in Birmingham there seems to be a lack of bins so people just drop litter rather than put it in their bags until the get home as this is deemed as the easier option as you don’t get the left over crumbs or stickiness all over the bottom of your bag or new purchases!!
So are the fines and reward schemes going to be enough to stop people from littering and if someone has always littered will they always be a litterer?
katiegraczyk said,
March 18, 2009 @ 10:07 pm
I agree…people do tend to not want their purchases ruined..and in some ways you can’t blame them! Not that it is an excuse to litter, of course! I agree with your Mom that sometimes using something like a ‘recyclebot’ can help, but is it enough? I don’t know that fines will help, in my opinion behavior is the most difficult thing to attempt to change. If it were easy, would we have any murderers? Maybe the fines are a good start, and the use of the eduction too. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out! Love the title of this also Katie!
chloethestudio17 said,
March 19, 2009 @ 1:08 pm
I think the fines are a good start, although seems obscene that 10 year olds get fined forty pounds, because it is just their parents who end up paying it! I think teaching children about why not littering is important is a better way of dealing with the problem.