Some time ago I came across an INCPEN press release entitled ‘Cherry-picking litter won’t work: It has to be all or nothing’. It reports findings of research conducted by Keep Scotland Beautiful and commissioned by INCPEN (The Industry Council for Research on Packaging and the Environment), whose members “include raw material suppliers, packaging manufacturers, and manufacturers and retailers of packaged products”.
It’s a decent piece of research, and useful for those of us interested in litter issues – but the press release stuck in my mind because, ironically enough, it represents a pretty flagrant example of cherry-picking in its own right, in this case, of the results of the research. It resurfaced in my mind when the Commons issued its report on litter and fly-tipping a few months back, which seemed to buy into some of the same assumptions as INCPEN’s press office about what matters when it comes to litter.
The INCPEN press release states that the research shows ‘focusing just on particular items in litter will not solve the problem’, and goes on to recommend that:
“What is needed is a comprehensive approach that targets everything from cigarette ends and chewing gum (the two most frequently littered items making up 39.4% and 45.1% of litter respectively) to drinks containers (6.4%), food packaging (4.6%), lottery slips (0.1%) and rubber bands (0.3%).”
While the research was reporting on a ‘count’ basis, i.e. the number of items, rather than the overall volume, or weight, of item types, I still found the dominance of cigarette ends and chewing gum surprising. Even allowing for the fact that they are much smaller, and therefore less visible than drinks containers or food packaging, from my own experience it just didn’t seem credible that between them they account for eight out of every ten littered items.
Apples and oranges
A quick look at the report entitled Composition of Litter in Scotland 2014 that is the subject of the press release threw some light on the matter. Between December 2013 and February 2014, 120 sites were surveyed (30 each in Edinburgh, Falkirk, Renfrewshire and Inverness). Of the 5,589 items recorded 2,518 (45.1%) were chewing gum-related. However, 2,480 of these were ‘gum staining’, accounting for 44.4% of all litter. Notoriously difficult to remove, such staining arguably represents a ‘stock’ of litter, accumulated over a long period of time.
It therefore seems unreasonable to compare this against figures in the same table for items such as plastic soft drinks bottles (1.6% of all litter), which are more likely to be picked up periodically as part of local authority street cleansing operations. For such items, the figures shown could be largely considered to represent the ‘flow’ rather than a ‘stock’. Of course, the extent to which this holds true would depend upon the nature of the areas surveyed including the frequency and type of litter clearance that occurs.
The report acknowledges this distinction, noting that:
“A count of littered items does not distinguish between ‘freshly-thrown’ litter and accumulated litter. Chewing gum and cigarette ends are particularly difficult to clear and therefore do accumulate.”
Moreover, chewing gum in particular is likely to remain in situ, whereas items such as plastic bottles are more readily transported by strong wind, and surface water, particularly during periods of heavy rainfall. While little is known of the specific pathways, it might reasonably be expected that littered items that are lightweight and high volume are more mobile.
Up a gum tree
Given this potential for a ‘stock’ of litter to accumulate, the report recalculates the proportional contribution of items other than cigarette ends and chewing gum (solid and staining). While a necessarily crude adjustment, this would seem likely to more closely reflect the ‘flow’ of litter. Thus adjusted, the figures show only 1.8% is chewing gum-related (down from 45.1%), with smoking-related litter dropping to 19.7% (from 39.4%). Accordingly, a higher contribution to litter comes from packaging, with drinks containers representing 32.4% of litter (up from 6.4%), and food packaging and food accounting for 23.3% (up from 4.6%).
These relative contributions and the way in which they change based on whether or not accumulated items are included, are clearly presented in the report, but blurred in the press release.
The report states that:
“The most frequently found litter over the 120 transects was smoking related and gum.”
This conveys the predominance of these items, while allowing for the possibility that they may have been there for some time. However, the press release claims that cigarette ends and chewing gum are:
“The two most frequently littered items.”
This phrase strongly suggests that these items constitute the majority of the flow of litter, which is evidently not the case.
Seasonal produce?
An INCPEN representative quoted in the press release acknowledges that:
“We believe good data is vital to underpin [Scotland’s National Litter] strategy, not only to provide a benchmark against which achievements can be measured but also so that targeted measures can be devised. That’s why we commissioned this survey.”
Notwithstanding the question of whether item counts are the most appropriate metric, it’s unfortunate that the timing of the surveys – no doubt driven by the need to obtain up to date evidence to submit for the Scottish Government’s consultation on the National Litter Strategy – resulted in the selection of a period that might not be genuinely representative.
Some cherries need to be picked. Photo by Lettuce (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) via Flickr.
Having lived in Edinburgh, I know that people tend to spend less time outside during a Scottish winter. As I write, I’m looking out at a Bristol park, which has been full of people for several hours, enjoying the sunny Friday afternoon. It is strewn with soft drinks cans, single-use coffee cups, plastic bags and plastic bottles, yet it was pristine when I arrived at work this morning. So, in less than 10 hours there has been a highly visible accumulation.
In the depths of the Scottish winter, it is perhaps unsurprising that one would find a greater contribution from smoking-related litter, as the culprits can’t readily shift their activity indoors. Meanwhile, only the hardiest souls would be eating and drinking outside. Counts taken in July might have found quite a different balance.
Pick and choose
INCPEN’s press release claims that:
“Measures targeting single items – such as deposits on drinks containers – will not achieve the objective of eliminating litter from our streets and countryside.”
It goes on to call for an apparently uncosted:
“Comprehensive approach that targets everything.”
It is not clear what a comprehensive approach might comprise, or why it should be expected to be effective in “eliminating litter” unless it incorporates the types of measures that have been shown to be effective in targeting single items. If measures such as deposits on drinks containers are to be disregarded, then the suggestion would be that only measures which try to address everything at once are acceptable. That is, of course, ridiculous. Only using measures that attempt to target everything runs the risk of targeting nothing very effectively, or failing to focus on the types of litter where the greatest impact can be achieved at the lowest cost.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with targeting single items, including cigarettes and chewing gum. Indeed, as argued in this report, such an approach would be fairer and more cost-effective than the current situation.
And it is not necessarily a case of either/or. Measures focused on single items can form part of a comprehensive approach to litter prevention, including education, infrastructure, and enforcement. However, a ‘comprehensive’ approach that excludes measures targeting single items hardly deserves the name.
Measures targeting single items are well documented, have been shown to work elsewhere, and could readily be imported. If you’ll excuse the pun(net) they are ripe cherries, and selective quotation from a survey whose methodology and timing are already liable to downplay the impact of packaging waste on litter should not deter policy-makers from picking them.
I suppose one has to take at face value the packaging industry’s paid representatives telling us that they are sincerely concerned about littering and only want to help find the right answers. In which case their analysis is surprisingly weak, as you show here in the article and in your answer to Peter’s question.
The cynical part of me though can’t help wondering whether what they’re REALLY interested in doing is furthering the financial interests of the packaging industry and avoiding regulation they fear will be costly, completely irrespective of whether or not it will leave our country looking less littered and our Local Authorities less burdened by clean up costs.
Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and just agree that their analysis is weak and ought to be disregarded.
Hi Chris,
Great article, thanks for sharing your analysis. It puzzles me – is a count of litter items the best indicator of things like the cost of clearance? I wonder how well it reflects the extent to which litter affects people, e.g. through visual disamenity?
I’d think that people’s response to litter is more likely to be driven by the size (and thus visibility) of the littered item, and what it is made of – not just how many of them there are. When I see a plastic bottle floating in the harbour in Bristol, that bothers me a lot more than a cigarette butt on the ground: It’s unlikely to be collected, and might well end up out at sea, where it will break down into microplastics. These factors aren’t reflected in count-based surveys.
The number of items is clearly one factor in determining the costs of picking up litter, but volume is also important. For one thing street cleansing operatives can collect fewer high volume items on a single trip, as their containers will fill more rapidly and they will have to bag up items collected more frequently than would be the case with lower volume items.
An article by Register suggests that 20 cigarette butts occupy a volume of 10ml. The 1,982 cigarette ends noted in the 2014 Composition of Litter in Scotland study would therefore occupy 991ml, or just below a litre in total. By contrast the 103 soft drinks cans, 92 plastic soft drinks bottles, 13 alcoholic drink cans and 4 glass alcoholic drinks bottles recorded would occupy around circa 70 litres in their uncompacted form (assuming an average volume of 330ml, which is likely to be an underestimate).
A rough ‘back of the fag packet’ calculation, applying these volumes to the litter counts would suggest that even including accumulated items, drinks containers noted in the 2014 Composition of Litter Study represent at least 40% of items by volume.