THE ACCUMULATION OF LITTER IN THE DOG RIVER WATERSHED
Kristie L. Thomas,
Department of Earth Sciences,
Litter is a
major factor of water quality degradation in the
Keywords:
litter, litter accumulation,
Introduction:
Litter
is a major
problem in the
According
to the
Alabama Department of Environmental Management (1994; 1995), the
biggest issues
associated with water quality degradation in the Dog River tributaries
Milkhouse
Creek and Second Creek are turbidity and siltation due to the high
development
activity. However, Debra Middlebrooks
from the Mobile County Litter Patrol says that
Research Question:
Are people more likely to litter if there is already litter present? If the litter is removed from an area, will it accumulate as fast? The answers to these questions are important for water quality, and have been asked in other experiments. A study by Finnie (1973) found that litter leads to more litter, whereas Crump, Nunes, and Crossman (1977) found that the presence of litter discourages people from littering. The red dots on Figure 1 show the two areas studied in this paper.
Methods:
On March 11, I volunteered to clean up litter for the county litter patrol. I chose this day because they only clean up major thoroughfares when they have more labor, which is usually on weekends. Since we cleaned up some areas of Schillinger road, I used one of these locations as my study area (Figure 2). I also chose another section of Schillinger road that I left dirty as my control area (Figure 3). Figure 2 and Figure 3 show what the locations looked like on March 11. I picked the location of the control area because it was the closest dirty public area to the study area. It was necessary that the study area and control area be on the same road in an attempt to ensure that the same populace travel by each (see Fig. 1). I catalogued the amount of litter in the control area to find out how fast litter accumulates if there is already litter in an area. On March 18th, I returned to the two sites and took pictures of the accumulation of litter. On March 25th, exactly two weeks after the first cataloguing of the control site, I catalogued the litter from each site.
While
cleaning up
Schillinger road with the county litter patrol, I became aware of some
problems
with picking up litter. For safety
reasons, we did not remove anything that was in a ditch, the road, the
woods,
or high grass. We also did not pick up
anything that was too small to remove with the poles given to us. Due to the fact that such small pieces of
trash remain after an area is cleaned, and are likely not visible from
the
road, I did not count them in my study.
However, since litter caught in the trees and tall grass are
visible
from the road, they were counted in this study.
Results:
There were 56
total pieces of litter in the control area on March 11th and 112 pieces
of
litter on March 25th. By subtracting the
amount of litter found on March 11th from the amount of litter found on
March
25th, I calculated a difference of 56 accumulated pieces.
This means the amount of litter doubled in
two weeks. On March 18th, there was a
bag of trash near the Veteran’s
On
both days, the
majority of trash found in the control area was plastic and paper, with
more
plastic than paper on March 25th. The
majority of trash found in the study area was paper, followed by
plastic. The entire catalog of the types
and amount of
litter found in both the control and study areas is available in Table
1.
Table 1. Below is a table listing the types and amounts of litter found
in the study area and the control area on March 11th and March 25th..
|
Study Area |
Control Area |
||
|
March 11th |
March 25th |
March 11th |
March 25th |
Paper |
0 |
31 |
20 |
40 |
Plastic |
0 |
26 |
20 |
47 |
Glass |
0 |
2 |
5 |
6 |
Styrofoam |
0 |
5 |
1 |
10 |
Metal |
0 |
0 |
3 |
3 |
Fabric |
0 |
2 |
4 |
5 |
Tire |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
Shingle |
0 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
Pipe |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
Total |
0 |
67 |
56 |
112 |
Discussion and Conclusion:
Although
the largest
problems associated with Milkhouse Creek and Second Creek are not
litter, it is
still a major problem. The results from
this study suggest that people are more likely to litter in clean areas
than dirty
areas. One possible explanation for these
findings is that people feel bad about littering in an area that is
highly
littered, but not in an area that is clean.
This conclusion, though unexpected, has been reached before. In a study by Crump, Nunes, and Crossman
(1977), it was found that people are more likely to clean up an area
that is
covered in litter than they are to continue to litter in that area. However, that study was performed in a forest
environment, as opposed to a major thoroughfare. The
studies that took place in surroundings
more similar to the conditions in my study found that people are more
likely to
litter if there is already litter present (Finnie, 1973; Wikipedia,
2006).
This difference highlights that there were some problems with this experiment, and the results may be skewed because of it. One such potential problem is that the control and study areas may not have been close enough to ensure that the same residents drove past each. If this is the case, then another study may be necessary on a thoroughfare with no major turnoffs between each location. Another probable issue is that the control area was across the street from a residential neighborhood, whereas the study area was in close proximity to the Flea Market. This also suggests that the same populace did not drive by each area. An additional potential flaw of this study is that some trash was removed from the study area. On March 18th, I noticed a bag of trash that was dumped next to the Veteran’s Highway Sign. This bag was not there on March 25th, and had it remained, the results of this study might have been different.
If
I were to
repeat this study, I would conduct it on
In
conclusion, there was a higher rate of litter accumulation in the study
area
than in the control area, though the reasoning for this is unclear. It is possible that people litter more in
clean areas due to the lack of guilt associated with a mostly clean
area, where
as they may feel guilty littering an area that is already dirty. It is also possible that people simply litter
more in a shopping setting than in a residential area. This
study was important for the
References Cited:
Alabama Department of Environmental Management,
1994. A
Survey of the
Alabama Department of Environmental Management,
1995. A
Survey of the Dog River Watershed: Second Year’s Findings. Alabama
Department
of Environmental Management Coastal Program Office,
Brosher, R.,2006. Personal Interview. Mowing
Division of the
Litter Patrol for the City.
Crump, S. L., Nunes, D. L., & Crossman, E. K.,
1977. The
Effects of Litter on Littering Behavior in a
Finnie, W., 1973. Field Experiments in Litter Control. Environment and Behavior, 5(2): 123-144.
Middlebrooks, D., 2006. Personal Interview. Solid
Waste
Abatement Coordinator for the
Pounds, T., 2003, “Does ‘Only Trash Litter’?”.
Department of
Earth Sciences,
http://www.usouthal.edu/geography/fearn/480page/03Pounds/03Pounds.htm
Web Accessed on:
Wikipedia, 2006. “Litter”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litter
Web Accessed on: