I live in a country where smoking has generally been on the decline for a while now but even still I see thousands of cigarette butts in just about any public place. They litter the sides of the road, bus shelters, alleyways, outside clubs, bars and pubs, public toilets, park benches and just about everywhere else. Its even extending to disposable vapes now as well.
For the most part, where I live doesn’t have that much of other kinds of litter about and is generally clean. And most public bins and all smoking areas have ashtrays and dedicated cigarette bins so it wouldn’t be hard to dispose of them properly like any other piece of rubbish and even then there’s often cigarette butts within sight of the bins and ashtrays.
Why then do people have a completely different approach for cigarettes?
Have you ever heard of “broken window syndrome?” It’s the idea that once there are a couple of broken windows on buildings in an area, quickly more will start getting broken. But if every window is intact, you will only get the occasional vandal being bold enough to break the first one.
It’s not scientific and may not even have any truth in it, but there is something to be said for the idea that if people see others doing something, they are more likely to go ahead and do it themselves.
To the point: if you see thousands of butts everywhere, smokers do too and probably consider it normal by now, and don’t care.
This only explains how things go from bad to worse. So who drops the first butt? Well: it’s the most selfish, lazy, inconsiderate guy around. There always is one.
Funny how all this adds up to the fact that we will inevitably herd behind the worst person around. Maybe that’s why we suck so bad as a species.
https://datacollaborativeforjustice.org/more-proof-nypds-beloved-broken-windows-policy-is-a-racist-mess/
Maybe not the best example to use a racist police practice
If 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 after they’d filled up. 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.)
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.
I hear ya. I just wanted to provide an example in which social norms lead people to do the right thing.