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My father is getting old and he has started losing his filter. He often says things that are inappropriate or insensitive while everyone else is tiptoeing around the elephant in the room.

It can be uncomfortable for those unaware of his early-onset dementia. But sometimes he surprises even those of us who know him well.

Recently, I was driving him home from a family event. As he sipped the last few drops of his soda from a plastic bottle, he lowered the window and tossed it outside the car.

Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, I asked him why he had done that. He said he did not want to leave any trash in the car since it was clean.

I thought he was having a temporary bout of amnesia since the father of my younger days could never condone such behaviour. But then a much younger colleague I was driving a month later gave the same reason for similar behaviour.

The issue 

With the fast-paced local news cycle, it is easy to forget that five months ago, the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) gave all private car owners a few days to abide by the mandate to place trash cans/dustbins in their cars.

Littering harms the environment. Clean-up costs can be significant too. I often fall behind on the news, so I learned about the NEMA development on November 5, 2023 my mother when she offered to buy me a bucket during a market stop.

After my initial confusion had subsided the seriousness of her offer dawned upon me. I started thinking about the several easier-to-police, less intrusive avenues to keep our cities (and roads) clean.

Trash cans are not the answer 

In a world increasingly dominated by headlines about climate change, NEMA’s directive could not have been more well-timed.

But well-intentioned as it was, there are more effective ways of changing behaviour in society.

If the lack of trash cans in private cars was one of the main causes of littering, then a few things do not add up. For example, many private vehicles already have the equivalent of multiple trash cans: multiple empty cup holders by the doors and below the dashboard.

These can hold more than enough trash generated by a family of five. Requesting people to repurpose these cup holders, instead of mandating them to install additional bins they will continue not to use, would be a good start.

Even more worrying is that the mandate was averted only because of its legality — not because of its limited potential to achieve its objective.

NEMA only postponed its plans after the Uganda Law Society objected, saying no law allows NEMA to do that.

I expected to hear more public health voices on the issue so it could be dismissed on flawed assumptions alone.

As many development organisations that have tried to get people to change their habits will tell you, behaviour change often takes more than a mandate. While promoting condom use to prevent the spread of HIV, making condoms available did not always mean people used them.

Social conditioning, partner consent, the stigma around their use, and taking the path of least resistance, all meant that more was needed to increase their utilisation. All issues had to be addressed in tandem.

We needed to integrate condom services with other prevention initiatives, such as educating people about their benefits or empowering women and girls to negotiate with their partners.

Those who turned up for voluntary testing also received free condom samples. Such carrot-and-stick approaches make it easier for people to adopt a desired behaviour change. 

Similar interventions in private vehicles would involve rewarding those found with rubbish in their trash compartments with, say, a free parking ticket.

Imagine being stopped by our traffic Police and receiving a reward instead of a reprimand. If you know you might be rewarded with something when randomly stopped, you will be incentivised to hold onto that trash a little longer.

Positive reinforcement is always better than negative punishment. But in the case of the private car mandate, there were hardly any carrots, and the stick was too large.

The proposed fine of sh6m ($1,600) for driving a car without a trash can is not commensurate with the crime. For comparison, a speeding ticket, given for a much more dangerous act to one's life, only sets you back sh200,000. 

Moreover, most Ugandans do not own vehicles. There are about three million vehicles on Uganda’s roads among an adult population of 25 million.

Based on numbers alone, pedestrians contribute a larger proportion of the litter on roads and cities than any amount private car drivers could with their best littering efforts. But tossing a can outside the window is much more visible than a pedestrian clandestinely dropping their tissue as they walk.

So, it tends to grab more attention. To discourage this behaviour, an effective initial step would be to increase the availability of trash cans throughout the city.

If a habit is too cumbersome, there is little incentive to carry it out. I have personally walked around the city numerous times with trash in my sweaty palms simply because I could not find a dustbin to place the trash in.

An easy way out 

Like many adult Ugandans, I went through my primary school years knowing little about proper waste management.

On the importance of reducing unnecessary use of materials, reusing materials to reduce litter, or recycling altogether, I learned much later in life.

A cursory examination of the current primary school curriculum indicated that waste disposal is not given enough attention.

It is only mentioned as a bullet point under the theme Transport in our Community in Primary Two. Commendable, but more can be done.

Children should be continuously taught about the importance of not littering throughout their primary school education.

Just like we learn to wash our hands in school and grow up doing so, learning, and practicing proper waste disposal from an early age can make these habits natural. Developing training on proper waste management in schools should be a government priority.

The writer is an international development consultant.