Pragmatic considerations and social benefits: an analysis of engagement with a fly-tipping reduction project

This paper reports on survey data collected from residents at five London estates toward the end of a pilot intervention designed to reduce fly-tipping and to increase re-use of items. The intervention focused upon developing centres, called Loops, within each estate at which broken and unwanted items could be repaired, improved, sold and bought. Various repurposing and repair skills were also imparted to residents through workshops and other activities (Phillips, 2017). Attitudes toward recycling and the future were assessed, as well as views on the amount and causes of fly-tipping. Questions about the social benefits of engaging with the project were also pursued. The only predictor of strong engagement with the Loops was a belief that people only fly-tipped when they had no choice. A second model, looking to predict whether or not residents had heard of the Loops, showed that convenience in conjunction with the view that there was a lot of fly-tipping, as well as age, were significant contributors. Both models strongly suggest that fly-tipping is thought of pragmatically, and not in the context of broader attitudes about the environment and future. Residents reported that engagement in the project did cause changes to their recycling and repurposing behaviours and that engagement also conveyed social benefits including increases in size of social networks.

The accepted manuscript is reproduced with permission of Keep Britain Tidy. The final published version is available at http://www.keepbritaintidy.org/local-authorities/journal-leq