Forget the facts: a humanistic approach to addressing contemporary issues in urban waste management

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ABSTRACT Despite public knowledge of the impacts of litter on environmental preservation efforts, volumes of litter continue to grow at alarming rates. In reviewing the history of litter research, a trend of focusing primarily on changing behaviour is apparent, while there remains very little understanding of the behaviour itself. By leveraging principles of radical research, a focus on understanding how items are littered identifies that a large portion of litter is generated unintentionally, calling into question the effectiveness of communication with a public who is not aware of the consequences of their actions.