Preventing littering with watching eyes on packaging

People are less likely to drop litter if it has printed eyes on it reducing littering by two thirds, researchers at Newcastle University UK have found. They printed two leaflets, one featuring a prominent image of watching eyes and the same leaflet with the eyes obscured. Even with no mention of littering, the simple image of the eyes deterred people from dropping the rubbish.
The researchers would now like to examine the effect when used on fast food wrappers and carry out further investigation into whether less intimidating eye images or the size of the eye picture has an effect. An article about the research is published in PeerJ (Press Release Newcastle University, 1 December 2015).
Click here for the press release.
Click here for the published article (8.43 MB).

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