CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Increasing scenes of trash and its side-effect have made the studies on community attitude and littering behaviour of immense interest to scholars. The Tasmanian litter Act, 1973 describes litter as “Rubbish, refuse, Junk, filth, unwanted by the owner or possessor thereof”. Studies on littering have tended to associate it with attitudes. According to Fishbein and Ajzen (1995), attitude and behaviour are in fact related. The concept of attitudes is central to explaining our thoughts, feelings, and actions with regards to other people, situations and ideas. Attitude implies feelings that are either positive or negative. Attitude has been regarded as the most distinctive and indispensable concept in social psychology. In fact, it is one of the most widely used terms of social relations (Berkowitz, 1972b). Attitude is an idea charged with emotion which predisposes a class of action to a particular class of social situations or objects. This definition suggests that attitudes have three interconnected components. a) The cognitive components; this is the rational information basis of attitudes, b) The affective component relating to the issue of like or dislike. It is believed that our most intensely held attitudes in particular are primarily affective in nature, and c) the connotative component which is the strength of a person’s behavioral tendencies towards any object. These three components form the basis for the thoughts and intentions that combine to make-up the structure of individual attitude. It is well established that we perceive a significant influence of those close to us (such as family and friends) on our everyday behavior. It has been proven that there is also perceived influence on our behavior by “unknown others” such as the mass media about our conception of social norms andactual behaviors. It has been observed that an individual’s attitude is the most significant factor in predicting his actual behavior. That is, how strongly will a behavior, such as putting garbage in the gutters, be punished by other social actors, or how strongly will proper disposal behavior be rewarded by social actors (or indeed by your own self – image and belief in being a good citizen. A significant part of the volume of trash generated around the world ends up as litter. Litters are collected from homes, schools, industrial arena, public parks and forests, alongside high ways and water ways, and on private land. Apart from being profoundly ugly, litters are a health and safety hazard capable of causing serious damage to plant and animal life. The problem of littering is not only an urban issue. Essentially, 37 percent of littering occurs at transition point; that is, as people move from one area to another (community change, 2001). Most residential areas are family oriented (neighbourhood) and generate large volumes of litters. The challenge of properly disposing such trash has resulted in the increasing volumes of litter around homes. The presence of litter in the community exposes citizen to diseases, such as cholera, malaria and other air and water borne disease. Littering is environmentally destructive, and represents a hazard to plant and animal life because litter contain injurious objects, such as syringes, broken bottles, plastics, metals and broken glasses that can hurt not only children but adults. In some are area where there is the presence of large amounts of uncollected trash by the wayside it has been noticed to be responsible for traffic disruption. It is also associated with causing floods in parts of the country. While proper use of litter could produce economic advantages, its non-utilization represents a serious cost on local authorities responsible for its collection and proper disposal. Littering has been found to take place at transition point i.e. where people move from one place to the other.
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