Many people probably recognize the image of a messy, dirty room for waste sorting or a garbage station with cardboard boxes and broken bottles scattered on the ground.
Previous research has explained littering by social norms - that people do as others do. But researchers at the University of Gothenburg have found that feelings of disgust also affect people's waste disposal.
In an experiment, researchers collaborated with municipal housing companies in Gothenburg. For three weeks, two garbage stations were cleaned especially thoroughly every day, while eight others served as a control group. The researchers documented the amount of incorrectly disposed garbage before and after the intervention.
The results showed that littering at the cleaned stations was clearly reduced, while the control stations looked about the same as before.
In other studies, residents were shown pictures of a clean or dirty garbage station and asked how they would act if they needed to use it. People shown pictures of the dirty stations were less likely to say they would dispose of their garbage correctly.
"If a garbage room is dirty and disgusting, it does not always help that there are functioning systems for recycling and waste management. Sensitive people simply do not want to be there, and then the risk of improper waste management increases," said Jacob Sohlberg, one of the study authors, in a press release.
The study has been published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology.
