Death Trap Campaign: Tackling Roadside Littering

Pilot sees 26% reduction in roadside littering during ‘death trap’ behavioural change intervention

Overview & Objective

In 2018, research revealed that an estimated 2.9 million small mammals, living along roadsides, are killed by littering from vehicles every year. Litter is not only potentially deadly to small mammals such as shrews and mice, but it is also cost and resource intensive for local authorities and other road managers. In light of this, Keep Britain Tidy in partnership with The Big Give, developed a behavioural change campaign targeted at roadside littering. The objectives of the campaign were to heighten the awareness of the dangers of roadside littering to small mammals. In doing so, the campaign aimed to incite behaviour change and reduce littering.

Approach

Pre-campaign perception survey to inform campaign messaging
Messaging developed to draw attention to the harm to small mammals caused by roadside littering and the scale of the problem
Seven local authority partners: Ashfield, Manchester, Dudley, Trafford, Wakefield, Wiltshire, Wychavon.

Campaign displayed on A3 correx signs situated in areas of slow moving traffic e.g. approaches to roundabouts or laybys where litter builds up and road users have time to absorb message before acting
Litter monitoring conducted by local authorities, four weeks of baseline litter monitoring, four week of litter monitoring with intervention in place
Post-campaign perception surveys
Social media campaign analytics

Outcome

26% reduction in littered items
34% reduction in number of bottles and cans specifically
87% of people surveyed agreed that the creative makes them more aware of the negative impacts that litter can have on wildlife
69% agreed that the campaign is likely to reduce levels of roadside littering