The City of Columbus announced it is considering putting up billboards and signs to place around Columbus to reduce liter. Many city elected officials like the convenience and low-cost of anti-litter signs. But do they work? In a study done in conjunction with Keep Indiana Beautiful, the City of Indianapolis, and the Behavioral Insights Team (that is a part of the What Works Cities Certification program founded by Michael Bloomberg) cautions cities from putting up signs “as more research is done on strategies to prevent littering behavior, we hope that local governments think twice before investing in signage. We have strong reason to believe that cities and states would be more successful directing funds toward infrastructure that will stop waste from being created and make it as convenient as possible to dispose of trash correctly.”
Preventing waste creation can look like disincentivizing single-use plastics through fees on plastic bags or changing how people think about them.
Aim to Reduce, Reuse, & Recycle
• Perk up Trash cans. Making trash cans look better and the area surrounding them encourages people to use them. People don’t want to touch something unclean or approach it. In places that are clean, people tend to keep them clean. In places that are trashy, people tend to make them worse by increasing the litter and trash.
• More Trash Cans. Strategically place trash cans in common sense places, such as parks, recreation centers, outside dining areas, etc. (And ensure trash cans get emptied regularly in those places.)
• Inform Citizens. In a study conducted with Keep Indiana Beautiful/City of Indianapolis/Behavioral Insights Team, sending an informative mailer had a fast impact on proper disposal of bulk trash. “Households that received a mailer were about 55% more likely to set waste out for collection.”
• Encourage Less Trash through composting. According to a study by Cornell University, composting accomplishes all the “three R’s” reduces amount of garbage sent to landfill, organic matter is reused (rather than dumped), and it is recycled into a useful soil.
• Encourage Less Trash through recycling. While Columbus does not have curbside recycling pick up, there are dumpsters where citizens can take recyclable materials, such as cardboard and paper. Other area businesses even pay residents to drop off copper wire and metals, while others allow people to drop off tires, etc.
• Encourage local businesses (not just grocery stores) to suggest shoppers bring their own bags or reuse their plastic ones. Training check-out cashiers to ask shoppers if they have their own bag may result in people feeling more comfortable in bringing in their bags. Business may see their costs for purchasing plastic bags go down. Some businesses, like Kroger, have a place for customers to return plastic bags.
• Produce Less Plastic. In other places, some restaurants have eliminated straws to reduce plastic. Instead of serving “to go” plastic cups, businesses encourage customers to bring their own. Some Coffee Shops offer “discounts” to those that bring their own coffee mug. Will the “Green Cup District” produce more plastic for Columbus? The program is new, but could it be possible to include “bring your own cup” as an option? If police need the cups to all be the same, would purchasing a reusable cup through the City or a City Partner make sense? Maybe issue a new collectible reusable cup each year? Hopefully, there are other solutions than producing more plastic that may result in more trash.
Does Banning Plastic or Taxes Work?
A complete ban leads to unintended consequences, such as a surge in paper bags and the processing of paper is tough on the environment. An all out ban also encourages thicker plastic that is not considered single-use to increase in production as well.
Tatiana Homonoff, an assistant professor of economics and public policy at New York University who has studied the plastic bag laws, in conjunction with the University of Chicago, stated in their research, “Before the tax, about 80 percent of Chicago consumers used disposable bags and fewer than 10 percent used no bags at all. In the year after it went into effect, “the tax led to a large decrease in the proportion of consumers using a disposable bag, with roughly half of consumers switching to reusable bags while the rest opted for no bags at all.”
In Homonoff’s study on Montgomery County, Maryland, she noted that “very small financial incentives can lead to big behavioral change.” The fact that small fees, 5 or 7 cents, can lead to big reductions in disposable bag use suggests that a sizable portion of the population is perfectly happy to use a reusable bag or not use a bag at all, and need just the smallest push to get there. Homonoff said that in her surveys, people would tell her, “I have a reusable bag in my car. Now I bring it into the store and actually use it.”
After Washington D.C. implemented a five-cent fee thirteen years ago, the Ferguson Foundation, which organizes clean-ups around the Potomac River, discovered the number of plastic bags picked up by volunteers dropped by almost three-quarters.
Of note, Cities in Mississippi do not have the power to tax or ban since the Mississippi Legislature preempted local bag polices and put the issue of taxes or bans under their control.
