Designing for Sustainable Anti-Littering Behaviour Change in Egypt

The study investigates littering behaviour in the Egyptian community through exploring the key factors influencing littering behaviour, using three case study locations in New Damietta City. It derives principles and design guidelines from the empirical data and theories of behaviour to address these key factors and demonstrates their application through the development of a design concept study. These stages together set clear path for a framework for anti-littering behaviour change which is the theme across the study.Egypt faces waste management challenges compounded by inadequate public awareness and inconsistent waste disposal. The literature review explored factors shaping littering behaviour in the MEA region, some of the globally applied interventions and existing interventions addressing littering behaviour in Egypt. Investigating these interventions highlighted that designing effective interventions for anti-littering behaviour requires understanding the underlying factors, to develop a context-based design approach to address them.The study employed a constructive design research approach and followed Steg and Vlek’s framework as a guide for the research conceptual model, emphasising the relationship between identifying the factors underlying littering behaviour and designing the interventions to address the behaviour. A mix of quantitative and qualitative methods were used to explore the nature of littering behaviour at Al-Saidi Street, Central Park, and Damietta University. An online survey was employed to collect subjective responses regarding environmental, psychological, and social factors. Overt observations were carried out by the researcher to identify the environmental factors of the explored locations. Covert observations aimed to describe people’s behaviour regarding how they manage their handheld waste and the context in which this behaviour occurs was also conducted. The study found that there is no significant correlation between environmental factors such as bin availability and accessibility, and littering behaviour; whereas, it found a significant correlation between psychological and social factors and littering behaviour. This indicates that integrating motivational and persuasive elements with environmental factors could establish effective anti-littering solutions.The main factors found influencing littering behaviour in the studied areas were integrated with the theories and models of behaviour change such as the affordance theory, nudge theory, and the value belief norm theory to derive principles and design guidelines for anti-littering behaviour. These principles and design guidelines for anti-littering behaviour seek to offer a holistic design approach for the creation of context-based solutions to address littering problem effectively.The study then outlined the framework for anti-littering behaviour and presented the practical application of this framework in one of the case study locations (Al-Saidi Street) to illustrate how it can be used to design context-based interventions for anti-littering behaviour. The practical application in the study starts with identifying the location, evaluating the location against the principles of anti-littering behaviour to determine which principles are absent, then, creating design concepts using the design guidelines. Lastly, the Fogg Behaviour Model is employed to assess the design concepts theoretically and create anti-littering approaches for the selected location. Following this, the study conducted an external evaluation with eight professionals using a semi-structured interview to assess the practical relevance, usability, and potential impact of the framework, principles, design guidelines and the proposed anti-littering approaches.The study contributes to the field of environmental design by offering principles and design guidelines to develop interventions that promote sustainable anti-littering behaviour. The proposed framework introduces a holistic approach that can be applied to different locations to address the littering problem and guide urban planners and designers in creating sustainable behaviour change. It further demonstrates how interdisciplinary collaboration can establish innovative solutions to complex societal challenges like littering.