Let’s be honest for a moment. Many of us love to say South Africa is the most beautiful country in the world. We celebrate the mountains, the coastlines, the wildlife and the landscapes. But take a closer look at some of our streets, parks and taxi ranks, and a different picture emerges — one filled with plastic bags, takeaway containers and bottles thrown onto the ground. And the big question is: why?
Because littering is one of those behaviours that almost everyone agrees is wrong, yet it continues to
happen everywhere. People will sometimes throw rubbish on the ground even when a bin is a few
metres away. So what drives that behaviour? Is it laziness? Is it frustration with failing municipal services? Or is it something deeper — a sense that public spaces don’t really belong to us?