Golden Valley Junior High School
NORA'S RAIDERS
Ecology Club
1970 - 1974
The Problem:
littering
Litter has been a long term problem everywhere. Something changed in the 1950s, though. The new interstate system of roads in the U.S. was suddenly festooned with unprecedented amounts of garbage on the roadways, enough to alarm locals and officials alike. The Keep America Beautiful was founded in 1953 to address this problem with PSAs, several of which are shown below:
It's odd to think that NOT littering is a learned behavior, but these PSAs provided encouragement and information. Slowly, the availability of public trash bins, and people doing their bit by using them, created a cleaner environment. G.V. Ecology Club made anti-littering one of their first commitments.
Litter, What is it?
A definition of litter, from Wikipedia: "Litter consists of waste products that have been disposed improperly, without consent, at an inappropriate location.
Litter can also be used as a verb. To litter means to drop and leave objects, often man-made, such as aluminum cans, cardboard boxes or plastic bottles on the ground and leave them there indefinitely or for others to dispose of as opposed to disposing of them properly."
Attitudes that allow litter:
Keep America Beautiful, Inc. research has identified three attitudes that allow people to feel it is acceptable to litter:
- They feel no sense of ownership of the property.
- They expect someone else will clean up after them.
- They believe it is acceptable to litter where trash has already accumulated.