the association of rat prevalence and composting in thunder bay’s urban neighbourhoods
abstract
landfilling is the most common municipal solid and urban organic waste
disposal method in north america and comes with numerous negative environmental
side effects. encouraging greater participation in community composting could help to
minimize or mitigate these effects while also improving social and economic
conditions within communities. however, there is still relatively low participation in
the practice and apprehension of urban pests may be a significant contributing factor.
in thunder bay, on, the norway rat (rattus norvegicus) is a common pest that
may be contributing to the community’s hesitancy to embrace household composting
as an alternative waste management strategy. to determine if composting is associated
with rat presence and if apprehension of rats is a significant deterrent to household
composting within the city, residents of thunder bay’s urban neighbourhoods were
asked to participate in a survey examining their waste disposal habits and subsequent
experience with rats.
the survey found that there was no relationship between composting frequency
and rat abundance. a significant number of non-composting residents associated their
decision not to compost with the fear of attracting rats to their property. despite these
fears, participants that were not composting more frequently experienced rats on or
around their property than those who were composting. other contributing factors to
the relatively low numbers of urbanites composting were a lack of education on how to
compost properly and a lack of accessibility to composting services for those with too
little time or little desire to compost out of their own homes.
collections
- undergraduate theses [325]