The Nag

DIY Nag # 63: Gutter Politics Nag

One small easy action to make our streets cleaner, safer places

created by grazzer 5 months ago

The general idea

Make rubbish a political issue. By clearing up after other people, and making a public statement of your actions, together we can challenge our throw away culture.

Why why why?

Litter is everywhere, in our streets, in our parks and in our gardens. It affects how we feel about where we live and ultimately how we feel about ourselves.

Rubbish its symptomatic of nearly all of our environmental problems, we feel powerless to do anything about it, yet its created by our individual actions. The solution is however simple, if only we act collectively. The more people who pick up rubbish the more it will question the behavior of habitual litterers.

What do you want me for?

Every day pick up just 1 piece of litter. Every 24 hours, as you about your day life just pick something up.

This Nag isn’t just about clearing up after people. It’s much more than that. Its about turning litter a political issue. It’s about changing our culture so that dropping rubbish becomes socially unacceptable.

How? How? How?

You don’t have to shout it from the rooftops but you do need to make it obvious what you are doing. Pick up the empty can someone has just chucked away and let them see that you are clearing up after them. In your lunch break pick up the most visible piece of rubbish in the most public place. On your way home, deliberately go out of your way to pick something up and drop it off at the nearest recycling point.

Through your actions habitual droppers of rubbish will start to question their actions. The streets will get cleaner and as they get cleaner people will feel less likely to drop rubbish in the first place. If streets are cleaner people will have more pride in where they live and feel safer in their communities. Who knows it might even make people more environmentally aware in other areas of their lives.

Who? Where? What? How Many? Can You Prove It?

People’s behaviour is largely influenced by what people around them are doing. We don’t like to stand out from the crowd. A notice saying keep off the grass will have much less affect than one that says 98% of people prefer to stick to the path. If everyone picks up litter then it becomes the norm to keep our streets tidy, through a simple task, we can transform our public spaces.

3 people have done something similar. How was it for you?

Tags

britain | clean | flytipping | litter | rubbish | streets | tidy | waste