The High Cost of Litter and Illegal Dumping

My weekly post about the high cost of litter with news blips about the costs of litter and illegal dumping from around the world. We, the taxpayers foot the bill to pick up trash, clean oceans and pollution from all over the world.

• Zimbabwe- Major Health Hazard of Litter – Harare — ZIMBABWE is sitting on an environmental time bomb as the rate of litter generation has surpassed disposal. Environmentalists have cited a sharp increase in imported non-biodegradable material and failure by local authorities to adopt proper waste management techniques as contributory factors. Waste management is the collection, transportation, processing, recycling or disposal and monitoring of waste mater
• Hume-(Australia)  HUME Council will double its spending on litter to crack down on rubbish dumping. It follows a cost of almost $1 million to remove litter and dumped rubbish last financial year. From 2010/11 the council will increase spending from $48,500 a year to more than $100,000 a year for the next three years, as detailed in the Litter Management Strategy and Action Plan 2009-2013. It will include installation of surveillance cameras at illegal dumping hot spots, giving landfill passes to home renovators to reduce dumping of construction waste and paying more attention to busy roads, sporting grounds and leisure centres.
• Northfield, Minnesota: Townships Can’t Stop Roadside Trash and Illegal Dumping – Enough is enough, say township officials who have trash on their minds — and their roadsides. There’s nothing new about illegal dumping along sparsely populated or trafficked rural roads, but as townships aim to keep their budgets lean and taxes low, they’d rather not have to pay to remove appliances, mattresses, tires and scrap machinery from their ditches.