The design and placement of litter containers has an important impact on municipal cleansing, as there is a direct relationship between the opportunity to dispose of materials in public places and the amount of litter and garbage that ends up on public streets and requires disposal. Also, the primarily manual street sweepers in developing countries use litter baskets for depositing the sweepings. This status of waste workers can be improved with uniforms and good equipment. A workforce that takes pride in cleansing work serves to increase public awareness of the need for a clean city. Manual systems are the standard in sound practice in developing, transition, and industrialized countries.
Sound practice involves designating routes which are feasible to be swept in a work day.
A key design feature in a manual system is the approach to collection of the sweepings. The carts then meet a collection vehicle at a pre-arranged time. Sweepers take their carts to small transfer stations located at the intersection of several sweeping routes. The wastes are put into plastic or paper bags and lined up at the curb for collection by a special truck. The sweepings are lined up in piles at the end of the route and collected by a mechanical sweeper or vacuum truck.