Governing litter : habits, infrastructures, atmospheres

This chapter explores how the problem of littering is, and is not, configured as a habit in attempts to govern it. In the Tosser campaign, littering is tethered to problematic identities but they are presumed to be capable of changing their habits, of acquiring internal capacities for self-consciousness and self-restraint through the development of better habits. How do investigations of the mundane material and technical infrastructures of littering reveal both the plasticity of habits and the role of environments and atmospheres in configuring them? If littering is a habit, then what the library car park study reveals is that environments, public visibility and atmospheres appear to play a far more critical role than individual dispositions. Keep Australia Beautiful played a significant role in making up the litterbug and giving this persona life as an object of popular concern and regulation.