Cleaning up East Potomac Park

Cleaning up East Potomac Park Abstract East Potomac Park is suffering from a trash problem originating from river debris, fishermen, picnickers, and illegal dumping. In this project conducted with the National Park Service, we investigated the causes, impacts and approaches to the trash problem. We interviewed NPS staff, conducted a site assessment of the park, and reviewed literature on visitor behavior and waste management approaches to compare various infra- structural, informational, educational, and enforcement practices of parks in and around D.C. Based on this research, we created recommendations for the implementation of new approaches and created deliverables to supplement them: maps of proposed locations for more trash bins and fishing line containers; anti-littering signage created using the theory of planned behavior, and an education program local teachers can use to increase students’ awareness of the impacts of trash. Team Members Advisors Kirsten Doyle Professor Dominic Golding Zhentian Ren Professor Lorraine Higgins Jarod Thompson Sponsor Yuan Wang National Park Service: National B term, December 13, 2018 Mall and Memorial Parks An Interactive Qualifying Project submitted to the Faculty of Worcester Polytechnic Institute in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Science According to a study conducted by the plish this goal, we: National Parks Conservation Association Understanding the causes and • Evaluated trash problems and management (NPCA) and Subaru, over 300 million people consequences of trash visit National Park Service (NPS) parks every practices at other parks. year and they generate more than 100 million • Characterized trash problems and manage- This section discusses the nature of the pounds of trash. The national parks should be ment practices at East Potomac Park. trash problem in the national parks. The three preserved for the enjoyment of visitors; howev- • Identify factors that affect littering behavior main causes of the trash problem within national parks are decreasing staff and budgets, increas- er, the growing trash problem has a negative im- and visitor awareness. pact, and not just on visitors. Trash in national ing visitation, and visitor behavior. The trash parks endangers wildlife, impairs the visitor ex- Over a period of 14 weeks, we conducted problem has negative impacts on visitor experi- perience, and increases the cost of maintenance. literature reviews, site assessments, and semi- ence, wildlife populations and park maintenance The volume of trash in the national parks is structured interviews. We began by completing budgets. The NPS supports research on visitor closely related to the number of visitors, and vis- extensive online research on this trash problem. awareness and behavior regarding trash prob- itation has been growing steadily at 20% per We then evaluated the trash situation and current lems to develop strategies to reduce the problem, and we review some of that research here. We year over the last decade. Unfortunately, the management practices in East Potomac Park ability of the NPS to address the trash problem have identified four approaches that the NPS through site assessments and interviews. We has been hampered by stagnant or declining uses to deal with the trash problem; infrastruc- agency budgets resulting in decreases in staff- gathered information on other parks by conduct- tural, informational, educational and enforce- ing. As a result, the NPS is trying a variety of ing interviews with a range of NPS staff. We ment. Following our summary of the research on approaches in different parks to reduce the trash recorded this information for comparison pur- trash problems and management in the parks in problem. poses in order to identify the advantages and dis- general, we focus more specifically on the trash advantages of East Potomac Park’s current prac- problems in East Potomac Park. Hains Point and East Potomac Park are tices and used this information to better inform administered by the NPS as part of the National our final recommendations. Mall and Memorial Parks (NAMA) and suffer similar problems with trash, as shown in Figure Trash in national parks 1. NAMA has identified four types of trash As previously noted, the amount of trash problems in East Potomac Park: in national parks is significant and growing. Yel- • fishing line discarded by anglers lowstone National Park has one of the largest trash problems in the NPS system. With over 4 • visitor trash at picnic areas million annual visitors (Uhler, 1995), the • dumping of household items, such as car bat- amount of waste produced by Yellowstone in teries and furniture 2011 was more than 9.2 million pounds, ac- counting for 9.2% of the total amount of waste • debris that washes into the parkg from river brought into national parks by visitors (Solid flooding. Waste Diversion, 2011). To address this prob- The overall goal of this project was to Figure 1. Overflowing trash can in East lem, Yellowstone National Park employs a solid recommend improved strategies for NAMA to waste diversion project that splits the waste into address these trash problems. In order to accom- Potomac Park landfill, recycling, and compost. This project has Page 1 diverted 73% of solid waste away from landfills. ferred maintenance estimates have increased from Figure 2 below shows the percentages of waste in $9 billion in 2006 to $12 billion in 2014 (Figure each category for the year 2011. 3). By 2017, the backlog of deferred maintenance had climbed to $11.6 billion (Comay, 2018). Figure 4. The budget crunch of America’s national parks (adapted from Bachmann 2018) Figure 2. Proportion of Yellowstone National and contextual factors may correlate with littering behavior. Individual factors include age, gender, Park's waste sent to landfill or diverted via Figure 3. Budget for maintenance, total deferred maintenance and rising disposal cost (adapted and if the observed participant is in a group or composting or recycling (adapted from Solid from Regen 2018 and Rosengren 2016) alone. Observations of almost 9,000 people Waste Diversion, 2011) showed that age and gender were the only two Visitation in the national parks has in- significant predictors of littering, with males being more likely to litter than females and younger creased by 19% over the last 6 years from 279 The cause of trash problems in million in 2011 to 331 million in 2017 individuals being more likely to litter than older (Bachmann 2018). Even though increasing visita- individuals. Two contextual factors, distance to a national parks trash receptacle and the amount of existing litter, tion requires an increase in staffing to accommo- date the increased park usage, full-time NPS affected littering rates. The researchers found that Trash problems within national parks are staffing decreased by 11%, from 22,211 in 2011 littering rates were higher when there were no becoming more severe due to an increase in visit- to 19,539 in 2017 (Figure 4). Staffing was de- receptacles provided and that for every trash bin ation, a decrease in staffing and budgets, and visi- creased due to the budget cuts mentioned above. added, littering rates decreased by 1%. They also tor behavior and lack of awareness. The mainte- One NPS superintendent was forced to cut his found that when trash receptacles were 0 to 20 nance budget of the NPS decreased by almost maintenance staff by half to adapt to the new feet apart, 12% of the observed people littered, 75% from 2009 to 2014 (Figure 3). Further exac- budget (Taylor, E&E News, 2016). which increased linearly as the distance increased erbating the problem, trash disposal costs have from 21 to 60 feet. Once the trash receptacles risen by $70 per ton from 1998 to 2014 (Figure Visitor behavior and a lack of awareness were 61 feet or more apart, that number increased 3). Declining budgets and rising costs have forced is another factor exacerbating the trash problem to 30%. Littering rates also increase when the the NPS to delay needed maintenance. Thus, de- in parks. A study by Schultz, Bator, Large, Bruni amount of existing litter is high. The observers and Tabanico (2013) found that both individual rated the amount of existing litter at the site on a Page 2 scale of 0-10. The results showed that for every According to Lawhon and Taff (2018), number increase on the scale, the observed litter- the writers of the executive summary of the Impacts of trash in the national ing rate increased by 2% (Schultz, et al. 2013). study conducted by Subaru in partnership with parks This research suggests that to lower littering the NPS, 74% of visitors properly dispose their rates, parks should remove existing litter regu- waste into trash and recycling receptacles, with larly and provide convenient and accessible respondents strongly disagreeing with the state- Whether it is because of a lack of visitor means for proper disposal as a way to influence ment that recycling bins are useless, inconven- awareness, or the difficulty of proper waste visitor behavior. ient, or confusing. They also found two im- management, trash has become a serious problem in parks. Proper waste management in- In a study conducted in 2008 by Opin- portant factors when analyzing visitor behavior. First, visitors who knew about the waste man- volves removing litter left behind by park users ionWorks for the Alice Ferguson Foundation and regular pickup of trash from designated (Opinions about Trash Research in the Potomac agement within the park prior to their visit were more likely to dispose of their trash proper- bins. Many parks struggle with waste manage- River Watershed, 2008), many respondents ment due to staffing and budgetary limitations. agreed that the main reasons people littered were ly. Second, visitors who looked at or saw signage were more likely to dispose of their trash This increase in trash and the impediments to laziness and inconvenience.

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