File:Framing & Reframing problems.jpg

English: 27 April 2014. Same old location; same old problem?

Or is it?

For many years, a litter bin at the corner of Dowsett Road and Parkhurst Road in Tottenham has been a location for dumping. Why?

Here's a list based partly on my own observations. And also on guesses and speculations - including comments I've heard from other local residents.

Possible factors in causing the problem?

  ● Not enough litter bins on our streets.   ● Too many residents using the bin.   ● Not enough collections by Veolia, Haringey    Council's waste management contractors.   ● Residents who treat litter bins as collection points    for any waste.   ● People keep trying to add their rubbish until   a bin is stuffed full and overflows.   ● People think a full bin means it's okay to   leave their waste on the pavement because it   will eventually be collected.   ● Some residents don't use the household waste   and recycling bins outside their own homes.   ● Kids litter on their way to and from nearby schools.   ● Haringey Council changed from a weekly    to a fortnightly general waste collection.   ● Some residents take no responsibility for the   waste they generate.   ● Failure by the Government to introduce   a tax on plastic bags.   ● Haringey Council and Veolia not engaging    effectively with residents to "nudge" us into    recycling, composting more, and using the   weekly food waste collection.   ● People living in very cramped accommodation    who buy "convenience" foods and dispose of   waste in the easiest way.

You'll realise there is no single "right" answer. There may be some wrong answers as well. Plus other factors not listed.

  I want to suggest that this isn't just a random list.   It points to different people "framing" the problem in   different ways. Which implies different possible   approaches and solutions.

Whose problem is it? Are we looking for someone to blame and to punish? If so how will this be done? (E.g. spot fines?)

Or will we get further by framing the problem as the need for more money and other resources? For example, to hire more cleaners and empty litter bins more frequently?

Do we take a "systems" perspective and look overall at what's happening in our partly unsuccessful waste collection arrangements?

Or is the most fruitful approach to find ways of making a "culture change" leading to different behaviour by local residents?

Go and Look

But before we theorise or even make guesses, there's an obvious place to start. Obvious if we want to find out what's actually happening, and how different people behave to cause these problems.

  We can go to the place and look. Talking to   people who use the bins, or live nearby.

When I was an elected Haringey councillor, I was impressed to meet many Haringey staff - and a few councillors - who thought it was a good idea to do just this. Years ago I sometimes tagged along with our friend Lucy Craig - then also a Haringey councillor. Lucy would chat with residents and council staff who responded to her friendly low-key questions. She also showed me the advantage of taking a digital camera - persuading me to save up for my own.

Many Haringey staff go a lot further too. Click this link for some photos I took in 2009. They show Kelly Peck, then one of the Enforcement Staff in the Environment Department, opening rubbish bags in search of evidence of who dumped them on the street.

No-Go-No-See

When a councillor I also came across no-can-do staff. They used one or more of 101 reasons to explain why something wasn't possible. Why the bureaucracy was right and residents almost invariably wrong.

To be fair, sometimes bureaucrats are right. There are many sensible and sometimes excellent technical and professional reasons why something residents would like to happen cannot in practice be done. But if someone starts with a fixed bias and a refusal, it's not hard to find justifications. Especially if you're not willing even to look and ask and reflect.

Here's an example I've given before: a pedestrian zebra crossing in Endymion Road London N4. In this example residents who are members of a local community website shared their concerns online about what they saw as a dangerous crossing. They also contacted Haringey's professional Highways staff *.

But instead of going to the crossing and taking a look, the Highways staff wasted time and effort writing emails to excuse their inaction. So another local resident went and looked and took some photos. Doing the job which professional staff were paid for and were failing to do.

And guess what? Residents spotted that: ● Branches from park trees partly obscured drivers' line-of-sight. ● The flashing beacons at the crossing were dirty and dim. ● Some of the white colour had come off the beacon poles, so the black and white stripes didn't show up.

Table Talk

In 2008 I suggested a small project to find out more about what's happening near the Dowsett Road regular dumping spot. And potentially many other rubbish dumping 'hotspots'. My idea was that Haringey staff and councillors would engage with and learn from local people by talking to them and carefully listening, Asking what they thought and knew.

I gave this project a possible name: Table Talk.. Suggesting that the talk could be around a small table in the street - ideally in the the long summer evenings.

What was the response to my suggestion? Zero. (Though always a polite zero.)

London borough elections are held every four years. Many new councillors were elected in May 2014. With another bunch of newbies in May 2018. Not all of them were as closed-minded and incompetent as the leadership. One or two were willing to "go to the place" - to look, listen, and learn.

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§ One version of go-to-the-place-and-look approach is the Japanese notion of: "Genchi Genbutsu" here explained by the Economist magazine as: "More a frame of mind than a plan of action. (webpage dated 13 October 2009. Accessed 4 February 2017. § Link to a helpful summary of the ideas in: Frame Reflection: Toward the Resolution of Intractable Policy Controversies by Donald A. Schon and Martin Rein, (New York: Basic Books, 1994). § Charlotte Pell's blog Freedom from Command and Control discusses systems ideas entertainingly and clearly. {Blog offline September 2016] § Wikipedia entry about Gemba - or Genba. N.B. "Gemba Walk". § In 2000 Lucy Craig brought her digital camera to Tottenham Hale station. She and I took photos of the litter, weeds, pavement parking and rat holes. After a lot of complaints, this helped achieve a successful clean-up. § My reading of Jane Jacobs suggests that she frequently invites her readers to reframe a problem by turning it around. As when she discusses parks and other green spaces. "Conventionally, neighborhood parks or parklike open spaces are considered boons conferred on the deprived population of cities. Let us turn this thought around, and consider city parks deprived places that need the boon of the city conferred on them. This is more than nearly in accord with reality, for people do confer use on parks and make them successes – or else withhold use and doom parks to rejection and failure". — From The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Chapter 5. [§ (Note to self for additional material on Berlin; Tower Hamlets and Park View Road waste bins.)]

§ Highways staff * This team seems to have the fancy-schmancy fashionable new name of "Sustainable Transport". I can't keep up with the restructuring and name changes in Haringey Council. And frankly residents should not have to. Especially as each name change wastes time and money the Council hasn't got. As far as possible they should settle on something plain and understandable and stick with it.