Raghav Juyal, an Indian actor and choreographer, recently posted a video on Instagram to raise his voice against pollution and littering the environment. In the video he was seen under a beautiful waterfall in Dehradun, holding a plastic bottle that he said he had found there. He seemed frustrated while saying “Ye sab yahan mila hai. Aapko agar swag se swagat karna hai na toh apne ghar mei kijiye”
He accused the local people of littering and polluting the environment of the place. Also, he requested people not to drop plastic here and there with folded hands. The pollution is increasing day by day. The government planned several interventions to prevent the situation, but these were not enough. Plastic bottles, beer cans, and packets are easy to find in tourist spots like sea beaches, mountains, waterfalls and others.
Spreading awareness is not enough to Stop this. People may be aware but still doing the same thing. The reason behind this could be modelling and social influence which means the individual does what they see others doing, if it is accepted by society then their behaviour gets stronger.
To justify the behaviour social psychologist Wesley Schultz said in a study, “Oftentimes people do care. But it’s too much of a hassle, it’s too inconvenient. And so people do litter, even though they already care about it”.
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Another reason could be already existing litter in a place. People visiting the place may consider it as a dirty place and litter more. Schultz said, “The presence of existing litter was strongly predictive of littering behaviour. So if you’re in a place that’s already highly littered, you’re much more likely to litter than if you’re in a place that’s clean or free of litter.” People may even appear to hesitate to clean the litter due to their concern with disease. Also, they may have a sense of futility in picking up litter. Another reason behind the behaviour could be the anticipation that a new batch of litter may appear almost as soon as the old litter is picked up so people may show a lack of interest in picking them up and keep littering.
