Seeds of Change
How behaviour change psychology inspired a community gardening project to combat fly-tipping.
In 2020 I left London and moved to Swanage, a coastal town on the Dorset coast. I feel very lucky to now live 30 seconds walk from the sea!
The entrance to my flat is down a lane, known locally as ‘piss alley’ which gives you a sense of how neglected the space was and how people were treating it as a result…
Fly-tipping, particularly during the summer months when the town is busy was the main issue for our lane.
There was a constant stream of trash from bin bags (burst open by seagulls) blowing into the sea. Private landlords and holiday let owners were not taking responsibility for providing bins for tenants and guests.
People would walk past our lane, already stacked with bin bags and simply copy the behaviour of others who had already left their rubbish there.
At this point I watched a Livvy Drake Behaviour Change webinar which gave me the inspiration to setup a neighbourhood community group to try and combat the problem.
What if we could fill the spaces where people were leaving their rubbish with flowers instead? If our lane looked like it was being cared for, would that change behaviour around littering and fly-tipping? Livvy explained this concept is called target hardening and beautification. The aim of our project was to make it harder for people to dump rubbish by putting barriers in place that make it less socially acceptable.
Before I created flyers which I posted through the letterboxes of my neighbours inviting them to form a group with me, I reflected on Livvy talking about motivations of other stakeholders. Whilst my priority was caring for the environment, I focused my comms around hygiene, cleanliness and taking pride in our neighbourhood which I recognised are themes with broader appeal.
The flyers had a 25% response rate, which is pretty good! We organised a meeting in the lane and everyone contributed some money towards plants. It was a great start!
We attempted to stop the problem of fly-tipping at source by reaching out to Dorset Council about our project. Dorset Council assisted by distributing ‘seagull proof’ bin sacks to flats in the area. However, this was ineffective as people had been seen walking long distances to dispose of their rubbish bags in our lane, it’s a problem that affects the whole town.
Based on learnings from Livvy’s webinar, we decided to focus on making our lane look like it was loved and not a space to dump your trash.
A volunteer and retired carpenter from local community gardening group ‘Greengage’ kindly sourced materials and built a planter for us. We positioned the planter in the main fly tipping hot spot. From this point, the project and the amount of planting has grown each year.
Whilst I may have been the person who planted the seed to start the project, other neighbours have taken the lead with creative planting.
There’s plans to create a small pond by positioning a tub with water lilies underneath a leaky water pipe that the owner of the building continues to avoid fixing. It feels fun to give anything a try!
Our current challenge is recruiting enough volunteers for watering the plants. We believe people want to do the right thing, so we’ve left watering cans next to each planter and knocked on doors asking neighbours and anyone who works in shops along the lane to give the plants a water if they’re passing by or outside taking a cigarette break.
The project is now in its third year. Whilst I don't have YoY stats, all neighbours I speak to say they now notice less fly-tipping. We've succeeded in creating a space that looks well-loved and cared for.
I now see people walking down our lane admiring the plants we've tucked into the tiny cracks and spaces we have available to us. Sure, it's still a little rough around the edges but we're slowly transforming our space!
We've built new connections and relationships between neighbours and local businesses that didn't exist before and we've tried to reuse materials and reduce waste by using pallets for planters and spent coffee grounds from neighbouring Baboo Gelato to mix into our soil for a boost.
A big shout out to Livvy for continuing to host inspiring and affordable training webinars. Joining a session was the catalyst to creating this project which has brought a lot of joy and sense of purpose to me and my neighbours. Check out Livvy's work here.