Litter
Welcome to the Litter Eco-topic, below the Litter Facts you will find information on:
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Why Litter is an Eco-topic
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The World of Litter
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The Litter Law
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What You Can Do
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Learning Outcomes and Objectives
It’s A Fact!
- An aluminium can takes 100 years to break down naturally.
- Local councils spend about £55,000,000 (fifty-five million pounds) every year cleaning litter from the streets of Scotland.
- In a recent survey, 90% of people questioned said that litter is a big problem in Scotland.
- Globally, an estimated one million birds and 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles die every year from becoming entangled in, or eating, plastics.
- If you can’t find a bin you should take your litter home.
- You can be fined £50 for dropping litter. That’s a lot of pocket money
Why Litter is an Eco-topic
It doesn’t take much litter to make any garden, playground, pathway, pavement or flowerbed look rather unpleasant. Litter can very quickly turn an area that is clean and beautiful into a messy place, giving the impression that the area is not cared about or looked after. This can be rather sad to see.
Litter is rubbish in the wrong place. The wrong place is anywhere that is not a bin or compost bin. Litter can be as small as a sweetie wrapper or as large as an overturned wheeled bin. Litter is closely related to waste and the Waste Minimisation Eco-topic but it’s so important in schools that we thought it deserves to be a topic of its own. In fact, a school must be litter free before it can be awarded the Green Flag Award.
If you choose Litter as an Eco-topic to work on you will be involved with assessing the problem of litter in your school, doing a ‘litter pick’ and working on a litter campaign to keep your school litter free.
The World of Litter
Litter lasts for a very long time. Below are some common items of litter and the tie it takes them to rot down in a landfill site.
- Banana skins / fruit peelings - 2 years
- Plastic carrier bags - 10 years
- Drinks cans - 80 - 100 years
- Glass – 100,000 years
- Plastic bottles – indefinite
- Chewing gum - indefinite
Notice that a drinks can takes 80-100 years. Do you know anyone that old? Glass takes a huge 100,000 years, which is so much longer than our lifespan that it’s hard to imagine how long it is. Plastic bottles and chewing gum may last indefinitely, that means forever.
Not only does litter last a very long time, some litter is dangerous. Broken bottles and sharp objects are dangerous to us and to animals. In the playground, food litter may attract birds, which can prove a nuisance or rats and flies, which spread diseases. Plastic litter may be harmful to curious wildlife that may become trapped, smothered or even choke on the plastic.
The Litter Law
Did you know that there is actually a law about littering? The law was introduced in 1990, it’s called the Environmental Protection Act and the maximum fine for your school is whopping £2,500. Therefore, it is important that your school is kept free from litter. There are four Environmental officers in Dumfries and Galloway and they are able to give a £50 fine to anyone they catch dropping litter. That is a lot of pocket money!
What Can You Do?
Tackling the litter problem in your school is an excellent way to make a direct impact on your school environment. Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Learn about your litter. Before any action can be taken to tackle your litter problem it is a good idea to find out how big the problem is. To learn more about littering in your school you might want to think about carrying out a survey. You could draw a map of the school grounds and get out there with your teacher to see where litter hotspots are. Wherever you find litter you could draw it onto your map to give you a clear picture of where the litter is and it might give you an idea of where the litter is coming from (is it blown in from somewhere or is it linked to any class?). This information will help you to decide what action to take. It’s important to make the survey work for your school, be inventive and find a method that works well for you.
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You will see instant results from a well-planned and thorough litter pick. You can use the information gathered from a litter survey to help you pinpoint problem areas. It is very satisfying to see the difference an afternoon’s work can make.
- A litter campaign is needed to deal with the problem of litter in the long term. It’s important to get the message out to the whole school and also to everyone who visits the school. Posters are an excellent way to get the word out and remind everyone about litter. You might have to think about termly litter picks to keep on top of any litter but prevention is better than cure.
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Borrow a ‘Clean Up Kit’ from the Eco Officer:
Litter pickers
Gloves
Handy hoops (a rubber hoop used to keep bin bags open)
Can banks
Eco schools objectives:
- To show that litter is an environmental issue
- To put a litter policy into place
- To demonstrate that litter reduction and prevention is an ongoing process that involves all members of the schools community
- To regard litter clearing as positive environmental action – do not use it as a punishment
- To show pupils that litter reduction and prevention improves the environmental quality of the school and the neighbourhood
Learning Outcomes
Pupils should be encouraged to:
- Identify the impact of people on places and environments
- Devise and carry out a survey using fair sampling
- Use and draw maps, defining and using keys
- Collect, interpret and present data in different forms, using information and communication technology where appropriate
- Work cooperatively with others