Taxpayer Cost of Litter And Illegal Dumping in Arizona

I just Gotta Eco Ya 

• $3,000,000 and nearly 150,000 labor hours each year to pick up trash along Valley freeways.
• DOT crews pick up an average 12,647 bags of litter from Valley freeways each month, or about 151,000 bags per year.
• Each bag of trash weighs an average 10.635 lbs., representing 134,501 pounds (67.25 tons) a month, or about 1.6 million pounds of trash (803 tons) per year.

Who To Call

• If you witness someone littering, you can call the litter hotline at 1-877-3LITTER (354-8837)

Fines

Fines for Littering

• Misdemeanor fine of $500 in the state of Arizona? The fast food that cost you $5 could end up costing you $500 when you toss that bag out the window.

Fines for Roadway Debris

• Arizona Department of Public Safety, violators could be charged with a class two misdemeanor. The fines, plus court costs, can range from $460 to well over $1,000, depending on injuries

Taxpayer Cost

Illegal Dumping Into Water Supplies cals.arizona.edu/AZWATER/awr/jun95/jnews.html-Add one more use to the multiple uses of U.S. Forest Service lands: the illegal dumping of hazardous materials. With hazardous waste becoming more difficult and expensive to dispose of legally, more westerners are dumping materials on U.S. Forest Servic e lands. For example, last spring someone dumped several drums of cleaning fluid in the Verde Valley within the Coconino National Forest in central Arizona. Some 30 cubic yards of contaminated soil needed to be removed, at a cost of $20,000, to keep the chem icals from seeping into the nearby Verde River.