Comment on Why do smokers specifically seem to be disproportionally bad for littering?
SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social 1 day agoIf you want a happier example, there’s the trash in Wisconsin state parks. The Dept. of Natural Resources used to place trash receptacles in our state parks, and haul the trash away. That worked, people put their trash in the bins, because that’s the social expectation.
But the DNR lacked the staff to keep up with the trash. Sometimes animals would get in and spread trash around, but mostly, people would pile trash on or around cans and dumpsters. If that’s where you put your trash, that’s where you put your trash, right?
So, the DNR simply stopped putting trash receptacles in the parks altogether, and announced that you’d have to pack your own trash out. And it worked! Without a socially-sanctioned place to deposit trash in the park, people pack it out. (Mostly. Humans are still essentially animals, so various detritus gets dropped, but no garbage bags full of food scraps left on the ground for the raccoons.)
Obi@sopuli.xyz 17 hours ago
While I’ve not had the chance to visit your amazing national parks yet, I understand that they’re an experience and a proper visit type of outing. I can see how that would work there because you’d hope most people visiting have made a conscious decision to go into nature, are prepared for it etc. I’m not sure a similar strategy would work in normal areas where people just exist, there I definitely think easy access to triaged trash cans is best.
SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social 9 hours ago
I hear ya. I just wanted to provide an example in which social norms lead people to do the right thing.