Poor use of statistics in Edinburgh
While I was at OR54 in Edinburgh, I spotted the sign below:
Make our city Edenburgh. Over a third of your bin is made up of food waste.
Obviously, the true statistic is that over one third of the total waste in Edinburgh is made up of food waste. But that is not the same as pointing the finger at everyone and claiming that their bin is like that. Maybe some PR person decided that this message would be more effective than something like:
Make our city Edenburgh. Over a third of the city's waste is made up of food waste.
But neither message includes advice on what to do. So, if I were an Edinburgh citizen, the sign would leave me annoyed (for the inaccuracy) and frustrated (for the lack of advice).
What do people who live in Edinburgh think?
Make our city Edenburgh. Over a third of your bin is made up of food waste.
Obviously, the true statistic is that over one third of the total waste in Edinburgh is made up of food waste. But that is not the same as pointing the finger at everyone and claiming that their bin is like that. Maybe some PR person decided that this message would be more effective than something like:
Make our city Edenburgh. Over a third of the city's waste is made up of food waste.
But neither message includes advice on what to do. So, if I were an Edinburgh citizen, the sign would leave me annoyed (for the inaccuracy) and frustrated (for the lack of advice).
What do people who live in Edinburgh think?
It may be questionable use of English as well. Here we might interpret the sign to mean that one third of the material used to make the bin comes from recycled food waste.
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