Study of littered wastes in different urban land-uses: An 6 environmental status assessment

Littered waste is a severe environmental problem. Although there have been many studies on wastes littered in the environments like beaches and seas, there is insufficient information on littered wastes in the urban settings. In this research, employing visual survey by the field litter counts method, littered wastes in six urban land uses in Qazvin, Iran were studied. The results showed that administrative and recreational land uses, by an average of 5.22 and 9.59 items per 100 m, respectively, had the lowest pollution, while low-density commercial land use had the maximum pollution by 185.96 items per 100 m. Urban littered waste ratios were not the same in various land uses: cigarette waste and paper and cardboard accounted for higher than 80% of the whole littered wastes in most studied land uses. The cigarette butt was also the most frequently litter in the city. In terms of environmental status, administrative and recreational areas can be defined as places with good conditions, while low-density commercial land use had bad conditions. Consequently, urban land use was acknowledged as a significant factor in the density of littered waste. More attention to cleaning the commercial land use to reduce the density of littered waste, and also finding methods to decrease littering waste by citizens, is a need in urban environment.