Whether it’s a hiker letting a granola bar wrapper flit away in the breeze or a construction company off-loading tons of drywall in the desert, littering and illegal dumping can have farreaching effects.
“Littering is one of those things that a person may do and doesn’t think it’s a big deal, but it has a cumulative effect,” says Doug Joslin of UNLV’s Public Lands Institute (PLI). “Littering and dumping could block a wash and cause flooding, it creates a place for vectors like mosquitoes, and it could cause fires.”
But, perhaps most important, littering damages the outdoor experience and diminishes the value of public lands. Visitors will think nobody cares, which leads to more littering, Joslin says. Bill Dickinson, superintendent of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, sees that scenario unfold regularly. Up to 250,000 visitors come to the lake on a busy weekend, leaving behind a significant amount of litter.
“It’s a huge challenge to clean up the litter left behind. We’re trying to educate people and provide an opportunity to act responsibly,” he says.
Fortunately, land managers like Dickinson don’t have to tackle the problem alone. With funding from the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, they launched the first comprehensive, interagency anti-litter strategy to address the larger issue of littering and desert dumping. The Southern Nevada Take Pride in America program began in 2005 and is managed by PLI on behalf of the National Park Service, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and U.S. Forest Service.
The program is tapping into UNLV’s research capabilities to boost its effectiveness. For example, Allison Wirth, a third-year student at UNLV’s William S. Boyd School of Law, is analyzing littering and dumping fines and regulations. The federal agencies all have different processes and regulations, Joslin says, and enforcement could be more efficient if we identify improvements that could be made to the system. Another project will use geographic information system (GIS) techniques to build a database and strategy for cleaning up the public lands.
The efforts, which also include dozens of volunteer cleanup days through the Get Outdoors Nevada Program, will be coupled with a messaging campaign. Joslin hopes the campaign will become ingrained in the public’s consciousness, much like Keep America Beautiful’s pollution campaign with Iron Eyes Cody and the whimsical Woodsy Owl’s “Give a Hoot: Don’t Pollute” campaign for the U.S. Forest Service.
“There was a decrease in litter with those messaging campaigns,” he says. “I’m hoping we can take what was successful from them and change (the public’s) behavior so that next time they have a choice about dropping the litter where they are or walking 20 feet to the trash can, they’ll walk the 20 feet.”
