Abstract
Urban parks provide numerous social, environmental, and health benefits, yet their effectiveness is often hindered by litter pollution. This study examines the relationship between litter accumulation, waste receptacle availability, and park proximity to high-traffic roads. Litter was collected and analyzed from two Cleveland, Ohio parks: Wade Oval Park and Fairview Park. Results indicate that Wade Oval Park, despite having more waste receptacles, exhibited a higher quantity and diversity of litter compared to Fairview Park. This suggests that proximity to high-traffic roads has a stronger correlation with litter accumulation than the number of waste receptacles. The study highlights potential limitations, including the small sample size and single-season data collection, which may not fully capture seasonal or behavioral variations. Future research should expand to multiple parks across different times of the year to assess additional factors influencing litter patterns. Findings from this study can inform urban planning efforts aimed at improving park cleanliness by optimizing waste receptacle placement and addressing external sources of litter pollution, ultimately enhancing the environmental and recreational value of urban parks.
Literature Review
Urban parks offer a wide variety of environmental, community, and individual health opportunities. Some of these opportunities include offering a network of natural areas in an urban context (Torabi et al. 2020), offering the possibility to experience beauty, awareness of natural processes, and connectedness to nature (More et al. 1988), providing opportunities for recreation (Low et al. 2005), enhancing and promoting social contact (Peters et al. 2010), physical exercise (Cohen et al. 2007), nature orientation (Lin et al. 2014), environmental education (Cranz & Boland 2004), and better health at city level (Larson et al. 2016). All of that contributes to a general sense of well-being (Ayala-Azcárraga et al. 2019). Littering is defined as minor waste that has been disposed of carelessly and incorrectly (Al-Khatib et al. 2009). Litter can range from small objects such as discarded plastic, glass fragments, fast food packages, and cigarette butts, to larger items like drink containers, plastic bags, and shredded tires. The cost of collecting and disposing of litter is not financially feasible; it is one of the most expensive problems that cities face (Roales-Nieto 1988). It instead is an issue best solved with a mix of behavioral and psychological solutions (Van Doesum et al. 2021). Our study is based on the premise that the benefits associated with urban green spaces are negatively affected by the cleanliness of the park. Our study aims to measure the number of waste receptacles in the parks and the park’s proximity to roads and how those factors correlate with the amount of visual litter in those parks. This study is not aimed to test or develop solutions for reducing visual litter in urban parks.
Methods
Visual litter was physically collected and bagged (using trash bags) from the inner circle of Wade Oval, an urban park (3.5 acres, Fig. 2), and Fairview Park, a neighborhood park (3.13 acres, Fig. 2). Litter was collected from Wade Oval Park on February 28, 2022, and from Fairview Park on March 2, 2022. Both parks are located in Cleveland, Ohio. The collected litter was then weighed and compared to the number of waste receptacles and proximity to major roads. Major roads were defined as roads with a daily traffic count of over one-thousand cars (DTC>1000 data was found using NOACA (Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency) data).
Figure 1: Map of the Greater Cleveland area is shown. The location of Wade Oval Park and Fairview Park in comparison to each other is shown.
Figure 2: Map of the two parks where data was collected. The red outline represents the collection area. Acreage, collection date, and time of collection are also shown.
Results
3.98 kg of visual litter was collected from Wade Oval Park. This includes a 0.9kg brick contributing a significant amount of weight (Fig. 3). 2.58 kg of visual litter was collected from Fairview Park. Excluding the brick, 0.5 kg more visual litter was collected at Wade Oval Park than at Fairview Park. Fairview Park was further in proximity to roads with DTC>1000 than Wade Oval Park (Fig. 4). Wade Oval Park had a higher amount of waste receptacles (Fig. 5). Eleven categories of litter that were collected were found exclusively in Wade Oval Park, compared to the five categories of litter exclusively collected in Fairview Park (Fig. 6). It can
be inferred that the number of waste receptacles in an urban park has a weaker association with the amount of visual litter as the park’s proximity to roads with DTC>1000, as Wade Oval Park has more waste receptacles and more litter.
Figure 3: The amount of visual litter (kg) collected at Wade Oval Park and Fairview Park.
Figure 4: The number of blocks from roads with DTC>1000 for each park.
Figure 5: The number of waste receptacles recorded at each park.
Figure 6: A comprehensive view of the number of items of each material collected.
Figure 7: Images of the visual litter collected from both parks.
Figure 8: Graph and reference image showing the number of cigarette butts collected at each park.
Figure 9: Graph and reference image showing the number of fiberglass shards collected at each park.
Figure 10: Graph and reference image showing the number of disposable masks collected at each park.
Discussion
The number of waste receptacles in an urban park has a weaker association with the amount of visual litter as the park’s proximity to roads with DTC>1000. The main limitation of this study was the number of parks we collected from and the amount of times we collected from each park. This led to litter only being collected from two sites and only once from each. More accurate results could be obtained by collecting from ten or more sites multiple times. This could lead to different hypotheses (e.g. There would be more litter at the same park in the summer than in the winter.) as well. Future studies could consider the placement of waste receptacles in parks. Another limitation of our study is that it was conducted in the winter. People are less likely to be outside in the cold weather which could affect the use of both parks and therefore the amount of litter collected. Both parks were found to have two different purposes, Wade Oval is an urban park and is used for larger events such as fairs and festivals which bring in more people. Fairview Park is a neighborhood park and is used mostly by students and neighborhood residents. This study could be expanded by following the same data collection and methodology in a different area and comparing the results. If the results are different it could be due to differences in the behavior of the people living around that park. Those differences could also be very intriguing to study.
Bibliography
Al-Khatib, I. A., Arafat, H. A., Daoud, R., and Shwahneh, H. "Enhanced Solid Waste Management by Understanding the Effects of Gender, Income, Marital Status, and Religious Convictions on Attitudes and Practices Related to Street Littering in Nablus – Palestinian Territory." Waste Management 29 (2009): 449-455.
Ayala-Azcárraga, C., Diaz, D., and Zambrano, L. "Characteristics of Urban Parks and Their Relation to User Well-being." Landscape and Urban Planning 189 (2019): 27-35.
Banerjee, S. "A Study of Visual Pollution and Its Effect on Mental Health." Scholarly Research Journal for Interdisciplinary Research 4, no. 30 (2017): 4768-4771.
Bruton, C. M., and Floyd, M. F. "Disparities in Built and Natural Features of Urban Parks: Comparisons by Neighborhood-Level Race/Ethnicity and Income." Journal of Urban Health 91, no. 5 (2014): 894-907.
Cohen, D. A., McKenzie, T. L., Sehgal, A., Williamson, S., Golinelli, D., and Lurie, N. "Contribution of Public Parks to Physical Activity." American Journal of Public Health 97, no. 3 (2007): 509-514.
Cranz, G., and Boland, M. "Defining the Sustainable Park: A Fifth Model for Urban Parks." Landscape Journal 23, no. 2 (2004): 102-120.
Gibson, I. "Predictors of Litter Pollution in Suburban Parks." Honors Scholar Theses 489 (2016).
Karimi, K., and Faghri, A. "The Issues of Roadside Litter: A Review Paper." Current Urban Studies 9 (2021): 779-803.
Kiessling, T., Salas, S., Mutafoglu, K., and Thiel, M. "Who Cares about Dirty Beaches? Evaluating Environmental Awareness and Action on Coastal Litter in Chile." Ocean & Coastal Management 137 (2017): 82-95.
Larson, L. R., Jennings, V., and Cloutier, S. A. "Public Parks and Well-being in Urban Areas of the United States." PLoS One 11, no. 4 (2016): e0153211.
Lin, B. B., Fuller, R. A., Bush, R., Gaston, K. J., and Shanahan, D. F. "Opportunity or Orientation? Who Uses Urban Parks and Why." PLoS One 9, no. 1 (2014): e87422.
Low, S. M., Taplin, D., and Scheld, S. Rethinking Urban Parks: Public Space and Cultural Diversity. University of Texas Press, 2009.
McCormack, G. R., Rock, M., Toohey, A. M., and Hignell, D. "Characteristics of Urban Parks Associated with Park Use and Physical Activity: A Review of Qualitative Research." Health & Place 16, no. 4 (2010): 712-726.
More, T. A., Stevens, T., and Allen, P. G. "Valuation of Urban Parks." Landscape and Urban Planning 15, no. 1-2 (1988): 139-152.
Peters, K., Elands, B., and Buijs, A. "Social Interactions in Urban Parks: Stimulating Social Cohesion?" Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 9, no. 2 (2010): 93-100.
Pouso, S., Borja, Á., Fleming, L. E., Gómez-Baggethun, E., White, M. P., and Uyarra, M. C. "Contact with Blue-Green Spaces During the COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown Is Beneficial for Mental Health." Science of The Total Environment 756 (2021): 143984.
Roales-Nieto, J. G. "A Behavioral Community Program for Litter Control." Journal of Community Psychology 16, no. 2 (1988): 107-118.
South, E. C., Hohl, B. C., Kondo, M. C., MacDonald, J. M., and Branas, C. C. "Effect of Greening Vacant Land on Mental Health of Community-Dwelling Adults: A Cluster Randomized Trial." JAMA Network Open 1, no. 3 (2018): e180298-e180298.
Torabi, N., Lindsay, J., Smith, J., Khor, L. A., and Sainsbury, O. "Widening the Lens: Understanding Urban Parks as a Network." Cities 98 (2020): 102527.
Van Doesum, N. J., van der Wal, A. J., Boomsma, C., and Staats, H. "Aesthetics and Logistics in Urban Parks: Can Moving Waste Receptacles to Park Exits Decrease Littering?" Journal of Environmental Psychology 77 (2021): 101669.