Breaking the cycle of harm

I saw a balloon release story in yet another regional newspaper today.

A balloon release story is an evergreen staple of the national and regional media. If there are hundreds reported in online editions every year for good causes, in all likelihood there are thousands of them occurring in the UK. They are increasingly popular at weddings and charity fundraising events as well as memorials.

I must point you to photographs of my beaches in Suffolk as to why I object to any balloon release.

As a journalist myself, I have begun to ask journalists to report balloon releases accurately for what they are: simple littering. Balloon release reports rarely mention their impact on the environment. Any mention of impact is usually a reassurance they are harmless, often quoting a balloon vendor or their proxy the event organiser. In ideal conditions a single natural latex balloon will eventually decay but 'ideal' is not the same as 'always' and releases are rarely limited to a single balloon without tags, plastic ties or strings. It's another tragedy of the commons where each person justifies it by "just one won't hurt".

Balloon releases are mainly done for publicity. They are a photogenic story but, in general, the print and television news media is totally negligent in reporting the harm that they cause or even questioning their impact.

Balloon litter found on Dunwich Beach

Mainstream media has many responsibilities; the most paramount is to be fair, balanced and report the truth. It should not give balloon release organisers encouragement by advance or post-event publicity without at least reporting the harm they cause. This cycle of harm must be broken.

Every year there are thousands and thousands of balloon releases world-wide that were encouraged by every previous release and the photographs published in the media show the vast majority do not adhere to the balloon industry guidelines to only use latex balloons without any strings or tags. The very premise of the popular fundraising method of balloon races requires a tag on every balloon though. Every so-called "responsible" balloon release will spawn hundreds of much more harmful imitators. The general public cannot be trusted to observe release guidelines. The balloon industry cannot be relied on to impose them. In every society its moral standards sink to the limit of enforcement. What would our roads be like if our speed limits were merely guidelines?

Mylar balloon litter found in Suffolk

Sometimes balloon releases are done as a memorial for a dead person, sometimes in tragic cases of children dying. A private expression of grief in this way is ill advised but is generally respected but memorial organisers often seek publicity for their memorials which only leads to more such releases. 

People seek publicity for various reasons. Good causes usually want to raise awareness of their particular cause with a  wider public. Balloon releases are cheap to to organise and seem to walk into content-hungry regional media without question. To approach people who plan and promote memorial releases after their announcement is very difficult. In my experience it's quite safe to generalise that they perceive even the most polite request as being insensitive to their grief. Should harmful expressions of grieving be permitted regardless? Is this suttee of wildlife and livestock and trashing of places of natural beauty acceptable? 

density per km of balloon litter on Beachwatch surveys since 1996

Otherwise celebrities like Jeff Brazier shall continue to encourage his 35,000 twitter followers and readers on the Huffington Post blog to join him in releasing thousands of balloons in memory of Jade Goody planned for March 17th 2013. This is not private grieving and it demands a response that it is irresponsible. His particular (and not unusual) response is to block people who contact him on twitter politely asking him to reconsider.

Balloon releases need pre-emptive information to discourage them. That won't come from the balloon sellers. It won't come from local government who don't require any licenses to release balloons. It could come from the media who can either refuse to run the story or it could respond with "thank you for your submission but we don't promote littering and will report it as such when it happens".

anti litter campaigns are undermined by balloon releases

The defence of releases that the balloons are biodegradable is a myth, put out by the balloon industry obviously to protect their interests. The great number of "turn-up" releases usually include Mylar balloons which are indestructible. But all this is beside the point. Balloon releases are simply littering. If people can be issued with Fixed Penalty Notices for dropping biodegradable fast food or similar litter, how is it permissible to allow and promote littering by balloon releases? Why does the unacceptable disposing of something by dropping on the ground become acceptable by filling it with lighter-than-air gas and releasing it to fall to the ground later?

The legality of balloon releases is subject to debate. The law seems pretty clear that to "otherwise deposit" material is littering but enforcement is very selective. The Metropolitan Police chose not to determine that Lord Coe was littering when he released thousands of balloons to open the Olympic Stadium in May 2012, but whether something is legal, or quasi legal, it doesn't follow it is also acceptable. It used to be legal for a man to beat his wife or to send children into coal mines. Society seems to have a collective blindness to the implications of releasing TONNES of latex and plastic into the air every year in the UK to come down on water and land to leave an unsightly and dangerous mess.

Another menace; the litter from a Chinese lantern

A good number of organisations can provide scientific evidence of the harm of balloons being released, which is far from limited to latex balloons. The RSPCA, National Farmers Union and anti-litter organisations have published guidance asking people not to release balloons. But whatever the scientific argument is, it's just a red herring. The simple fact remains, to let a balloon go deliberately is just littering. No good cause can justify that harm.

If you want more links and information, I suggest you follow the hashtag #balloonrelease on twitter. Zilch.org.uk has begun tracking the number of balloon releases reported in the media and on social media.

So if you are a journalist, I urge you to reconsider how you report balloon releases and the part you play in encouraging them. Otherwise you are complicit in this harm.

Idea for litter prevention scheme

A scheme for raising awareness and the prevention of take-away food litter.




1. On joining the scheme customers pledge to be good citizens about litter to get rewards and an ID card to use with cash purchases.

2a. Participating food vendors offer a lottery draw or point-of-sale discount when purchasing food using payment processing which records their ID e.g. debit cards.

2b. Cash purchases are tagged with CCTV or photo at point-of-sale.

3. Scheme terms and condition include permission to capture data.

4. Food packaging i.e. boxes and cups is marked with unique machine-readable code at manufacturing plant with UV ink.

5. All packaging is passed through a scanner at point of sale and linked to POS transaction data and cctv images or customer ID.

6. Evidence of disposal violations (such as street litter) is collected and scanned for match to sales data.

7a. Customers with ID can redeem any packaging to gain reward points.

7b. Customers without ID (or choosing not to use theirs) can redeem any packaging at point of origin or another branch with reward points going to charity.

8. Evidence of disposal compliance (such as waste receptacles) is scanned for match to sales data.

9. Compliant disposal data is searched for trend evidence and learning.

10. Violation disposal data is searched for match to customer ID and trend data.

11. Customers with record of consistently compliant disposal are entered into a reward lottery or acknowledged with discount coupons.

12. Consistent non-compliance evidence is passed to law enforcement.

13. Identified customers with consistent non-compliance are offered educational interventions rather than prosecution to preserve the vendor brand values.

From: McDonalds Customer Services
Sent: 12 August 2011 16:22
To: Nat Bocking
Subject: McDonalds Customer Services Department Reference: 1182617

Dear Mr Bocking 

Thank you for your enquiry and interest in McDonald’s.
I would like to take this opportunity to explain that at present, we are in the process of reviewing our approach to litter. Regrettably, it remains a social problem for the country as whole as it seems many people still feel it is acceptable to indiscriminately drop litter wherever they choose. Ultimately, this is something that will require long term action toward changing the ‘mind-set’.

Our franchisees and individual restaurants work closely with local schools, youth groups and scout troops on litter education. In addition our restaurant staff carry out regular ‘litter patrols’ in the surrounding areas throughout the day.
In Manchester and Birmingham we employ dedicated litter pickers who walk the streets. In addition we are exploring ways of working with national organisations like Keep Britain Tidy, Keep Wales Tidy and Keep Scotland Beautiful, in an effort to try and tackle this issue together.

We have also made a lot of progress with our packaging suppliers in order to reduce the amount of packaging we use and where possible use recycled packaging, whilst at the same time complying with food safety standards.

Please rest assured that this is an issue which is high on our environmental agenda and one which we take very seriously.

Regards
Natasha Callis
Internet Response Team
McDonald's Customer Services Department
11 - 59 High Road
East Finchley
London
N2 8AW

Dear McDonalds,

Thank you very much for your reply. I hope you appreciate that the diagram I sent you explains how you can change that ‘mind-set’ that is the root of this pervasive problem.

If you had a mechanism to reward compliant behaviour and gently re-educate (rather than punitively punish) litter violators, it would do a lot for your brand and counter your detractors that you are serious about your environmental and social impact.

I do appreciate you have litter patrols but I have witnessed McDonalds litter being thrown away 20 miles from the nearest restaurant in rural Suffolk and so it strikes me the only way to help prevent that is to make the litter traceable to the point of origin. 

Even if the actual purchaser could not be identified, then at least some spatial data about where litter originates and ends up would be useful to McDonalds and the fast-food industry to understand what is or isn’t working in getting an anti-litter message to the customer and such data would assist the siting of waste bins and distribution of litter patrols and so on.

I look to the market leader in McDonalds to consider such innovation as, after over 30 years of operation in Britain, I haven’t seen improvement in the results of your current practise. Making your litter traceable would demonstrate that you had, if you could.

Kind regards,

Nat Bocking


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I have now entered this idea in the GeoVation Challenge. Please vote for me and make this a reality.

https://challenge.geovation.org.uk/a/dtd/Litter-reduction-lottery/413637-16422 

Island entrepreneur cleans up

I recently returned from the Gulf island of Saltspring in British Columbia where a winter population of about 10,000 trebles in summer with the influx of visitors like me.

Here I encountered an unusual entrepreneur called Reg who has taken to providing waste bins and recycling boxes around the main village of Ganges.

Reg can be seen outside on most days picking up rubbish from the park, harbour and the downtown village area. Although the islanders are already paying for public litter bins out of their taxes, he is supported by residents and visitors alike. They recognise that it only takes .01% of the population being thoughtless to cause an ecological disaster as litter dropped on the streets quickly washes into streams and the sea, polluting the very delicate ecosystems the islanders depend on. They drive the island's two economic engines; its organic agriculture and the tourism drawn by the natural beauty.
courtesy of Salt Spring Photos
Around the town there are bins marked 'SSI Clean-up By Donation' and local people say Reg's effort has reduced littering and pollution. Meantime he has told Salt Spring Photos he is making a living on the donations people give when they meet him out working every day.

Reg has created a job for himself in an environment where traditional avenues of island wealth creation; logging, construction etc., are very constrained, dangerous or unsustainable. Apparently the broken-window effect is working here too: by keeping Ganges spotless, less litter is being dropped in the first place. And he is not the only self-appointed garbage collector; when I took a walk on one of the many trails leading out of the village, I noticed there was a lot of litter on it but a couple of days later, I overheard in a coffee shop it had been collected by a volunteer who was arranging for its removal from the trailhead.

The ethos and spirit of the community found on Salt Spring Island is renown, though I think it's not that unusual in Canada. Canadians have a reputation abroad for earnest likeability and spending time on the island teaches you that self-sufficiency requires generosity to your fellow islander, not isolation from their problems. You don't fix crime on an island by putting up higher fences around your property but by figuring out why the thief wants to steal.

I wonder if someone taking this kind of initiative would succeed in the UK? Could you ‘adopt’ a busy area - such as Crouch End in London - and if someone took responsibility to keep it free of litter, would there be enough community spirit in people to reward it, as they do in Salt Spring? I have tried in vain so far to find a similar example of such initiative anywhere else.

Postscript November 12, 2011
It’s a given that Salt Spring Island is contagious, but I wonder if this example in Los Angeles is connected?