The Context Machine

Stroll through your local town or city in the early hours of the morning and you will discover various road sweepers out and about cleaning up the litter strewn around by all the drunken activities of last night. It’s a regular early daybreak scene, particularly the beeping noise! We don’t really give rubbish a second thought as we feel keeping the streets clean is not our job.

However, there is a subtle yet important influence litter plays on human psychology. People are more liable to believe an area is less well policed if rubbish is scattered around, and so criminals see rubbish as a likely indication for a chance of a mugging or robbery. The same signal creates some fear in other people who worry they might be passing into a more dangerous area and are wary of being robbed.

Not only that, but also the influence on the aesthetic appeal of a neighbourhood. Rubbish strewn around can give the visual aspect of a location looking unkempt even if it’s just been “abused” by party revellers from the previous night. This can harm the reputation of an area if individuals are only within the location for this particular short period of time and only view it in its disorderly state.

Prevention is always better than cure when it comes to litter. There’s absolutely no reason to throw rubbish if there are unfilled bins around the area. If there is a lack of rubbish bins, or the litter bins that are there are brimming, this is an issue to take up with the local council. Trashing an area has a damaging impact on everybody.