Litter trashes the environment. A phrase which always forgotten by the people.

Litter is any material that has been left where it is not meant to be. People usually think that littered items are those can be seen physically such as rubbishes and leftovers. And this is the fact, frequently littered items include cigarette ends, bus tickets, drink containers, apple cores, take-away food packaging, materials that are falling from an unsecured load and many more. Besides that, litter is usually thought of as small items, but it also includes abandoned vehicles, household rubbish dumped on the roadside or in bushes, and furniture such as mattresses left on the street by people moving house. The New Oxford Dictionary defines littering as the disposal of solid waste by dropping on the ground or into streams. Reality happens in my life too when I could see many abandoned vehicles is left in the nearby workshops and the amount of the vehicles is getting higher day by day. Plus, the solid wastes in the dustbins. Many scientist attribute drought to the increase in littering, the lack of recycling as well as the increase in global warming.

Environmentalists consider litter a nasty side effect of our convenience-oriented disposable culture. Just to highlight the scope of the problem, California alone spends $28 million a year cleaning up and removing litter along its roadways. And once trash gets free, wind and weather move it from streets and highways to parks and waterways. One study found that 18 percent of litter ends up in rivers, streams and oceans.

Litter Matters - But Why? Litter is the most visible sign of pollution. It is unsightly and can cause harm to people, wildlife and our waterways. It encourages pest animals as well as the spread of germs and disease. Litter is wasteful and costly to clean up. Litter also affects the way tourists view our town. Dangerous Litter

Some litter can be dangerous. Broken glass, fishhooks and bits of metal can cause serious injuries to people. Discarded lit cigarettes can cause fires.

Litter Costs Litter prevention, education, collection and enforcement costs the community every year. Litter has many other costs that are significant but hard to quantify in monetary terms. Examples include the social and environmental costs of degraded environments, injured wildlife, and impacts on livability such as reduced amenity of public space, and community safety.

Who Litters and How? Littering research shows that that there are no significant gender, age or class distinctions in people's littering behaviour. Littering behaviours are influenced by a number of factors - the type of item being disposed of, whether people regard the item as litter, whether bins are available to dispose of the litter and whether we are alone or in a group or in a private or public place. The bottom line is that people from all walks of life litter. Preventing and reducing litter is everyone's responsibility. As individuals we can choose to 'do the right thing' and dispose of our waste appropriately.

Changing Littering Behaviours The complexity of littering behaviours requires that at the community level we need to work together to develop litter strategies that address a range of factors and in an integrated way. The essential elements are education & enforcement. An education program alone or the issuing of fines by itself will not lead to sustainable long term changes. Likewise, the provision of more bins alone does not prevent litter - about 50% of littering occurs within 8 metres of a bin. When people are educated about the dangers of littering, attitude and behaviour change are more likely to occur.