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- 1. 1 Sara Herbert Dr. Tuttle LAR 490 17 March 2016 Disastrous Littering What exactly is littering? Do we define littering as throwing trash out of the window, or can littering also be defined by tossing out food for the outdoor animals? Littering is defined by Dictionary.com as objects strewn or scattered about (2016). Littering has been a concern for many years and it will continue to be a major concern until we are able to put a stop to it. With such a small community on Saint Catharine Colleges campus, it would seem that it would be easier to keep the community clean and free of litter. This is not necessarily the case. Walking around campus it is easy to spot over a dozen items of trash lying on the ground. It is interesting to see how many items look like they were deliberately thrown out of a persons car or room. Trash bags are left within the elevator for another resident of the building to dispose of for them. Because the campus receives regular visitors, whether it is opposing sports teams, high school students visiting, or just a Saint Catharine College students parent visiting, it is important to keep a campus that is appealing to the eye and gives a sense that the people that belong to this campus are proud and willing to show it off. How can we as a community better the appearance of our school? With this study, I hope to have a better sense of the attitude people have who are littering on campus and what can be done to help prevent it.
- 2. 2 Because most people do not know the specific problems that go with littering, it makes it much easier to toss trash out of the window without a second thought. Growing up, I was taught that it was bad to litter, I was not taught about the impact of littering. Littering has both aesthetic and environmental effects. According to Susan Revermann, litter has the ability to eventually seep into the groundwater causing a major problem with available drinking water for people who rely on wells (2016). The litter is unsightly, but the effects of unavailable drinking water are much worse. I think that it is fair to say that most students on Saint Catharine Colleges campus do not think about the potential lasting problems when tossing their empty cup out of the window. My study will check this assumption. My study will be examining every person on Saint Catharine Colleges campus. Any member of the student body, faculty, and custodial staff are going to be subjects of my study. I plan on having a survey sent out to anyone who will be willing to take it on the campus. The survey will not be mandatory but it would be beneficial to have a significant number of Saint Catharine College members be a part of it. The surveys will be anonymous and no one will be required to give out any personal information about oneself, only the questions regarding littering. I also intend to have a session in which I watch a particular area of campus, Aquinas Hall parking lot, for roughly four hours to determine how often and if I would be able to see anyone littering. This would happen on a weekday when the weather was nice and people would be more frequent outside. It is important to be watchful and take careful notes because the accuracy of the study is very crucial. I plan to watch from the inside of Aquinas so that I would not disturb the nature of something a person would do if they were alone.
- 3. 3 There is a sense of pride lost whenever I hear someone talking about Saint Catharines campus. Because some of the students lack a certain type of respect when referring to their campus, it lowers their ambition to help keep Saint Catharine beautiful. Because of the lack of pride, we see rules broken. For example, Saint Catharine is a tobacco free campus. Even with the rule put into place about being a tobacco free campus, cigarette butts are found all over campus, mostly in the parking lots. I have seen people smoking in their cars and when they are finished, toss the butt onto the ground outside of their window. In the article by Sawdey, Lindsay, and Novotny, it was claimed that cigarette butts make up 25% of roadside waste alone (2011). This also makes its way eventually into the ground, affecting groundwater and potentially making its way into the ocean. Collecting and researching the data given to me through the surveys on littering will potentially help me to better prevent the littering happening on campus. It is important that the littering stops happening around and on campus because it is doing substantial harm to our community. Not only is it unpleasant to look at, but it gives a bad reputation to new people on campus. The way something looks is closely related to how a person feels while being in that space. Ultimately, litter can begin a sort of slippery slope for crime and other unwanted behaviors in a community (Kingdom, 2016). Being in such a small community this is problematic for most people. Few people would want to live in an area where they feel like his or her well-being is being threatened. Litter has the ability to give off a look of an unkempt, devalued community. This is not how our campus should be treated. When my results from the surveys, the observation of the parking lot, and the interview of the custodial staff, all come together I plan on noting the differences that everyone has to say. It depends on what people will admit to on the surveys to gather what can be done to decrease the amount of littering on campus. I can put a percentage of the amount of people who are
- 4. 4 willing to admit that they are frequent litterers on campus. This would help me to understand what needs to be done to discourage people from tossing trash on the ground. It is obvious that littering is occurring everyday due to the large amount of debris that is covering Saint Catharine Colleges campus. We must figure out a way to decrease it. With my research project, I am hoping to gather data to help me to understand why people are littering in such large numbers here. I am also hoping to learn about the lack of pride that is being displayed daily. I expect to learn that the majority of the people here do not respect the campus and are indifferent to the way that it looks. I hope to understand why people are incapable of throwing things away in proper receptacles. I am hopeful that my interviews with the janitorial staff will help me to better understand just how much litter they pick up before being bombarded with more.
- 5. 5 References Dictionary.com. Retrieved from www.dictionary.com. 17 February 2016. Kingdom. (2016). Litter: Its Impact on Local Communities. Retrieved from www.kingdom.co.uk on 17 February 2016. Passafaro, P. (2015). A Beliefs Based Measure of Attitudes Towards Urban Littering. Applied Psychology Bulletin (Bollettino Di Psicologia Applicata), 163(274), 15-22. Revermann, S. (2016). How Does Littering Affect the Environment? Seattle PI. Retrieved from http://education.seattlepi.com/littering-affect-environment-6802.html on 17 February 2016. Sawdey, M., Lindsay, R., and Novotny, T. Smoke-free college campuses: no ifs, ands or toxic butts. Tobacco Control. 23 February 2011. Retrieved from http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/20/Suppl_1/i21.abstract.