The Geography of Litter - Behaviour Observations

Despite a universal aversion to litter, it is predicted that 62% of the UK population actively drops litter (Keep Britain Tidy, 2013), yet only 20% of the population will admit to it (DEFRA, 2018). This raises the question that, if the public, academics and government officials are aware of litter, actively fighting it and employing best available science in their efforts, why does rubbish continue to accumulate in public spaces? To explore this, a series of covert behaviour observation studies were run to quantify methods of waste disposal in England. Data included within is raw output of observations where behaviours are categorised and coded. Code is available in the Metadata tab.