A case study on litter management and clean environment index in small tourism cities

Litter is one of the main pollutants of the urban environment that can have a negative effect on tourism. In this study, the density and composition of litter in a tourist city in the center of Iran was investigated. For this purpose, the status of the urban environment in different land-uses was monitored for nine months and the clean environment index was used to interpret the data. The results showed that the density of litter in the studied city environment was influenced by temporal and spatial variations. The average density in cold and warm seasons was 0.547 items/m² and 0.576 items/m², respectively. The average density of litter in commercial, residential, diverse, and recreational land-uses was 0.436 items/m², 0.653 items/m², 0.582 items/m², and 0.564 items/m², respectively. The minimum and maximum clean environment index was 6.83 and 34.15, respectively. Based on this, 58.3% of the studied areas were categorized as dirty, while the average index in commercial land-use as the main places for tourists was 16.54, which indicates the dirty status. According to the calculated index for the studied locations, it can be concluded that urban cleanliness is in a poor state and the studied urban environment is more polluted compared to other cities. So, it is necessary to increasing the efficiency of the urban cleaning service and changing the behavior of citizens to improve the current situation.