[philipkglass]

I agree with you. It's also a relative matter of cheap and convenient. If it's a consistently-enforced $100 fine for dumping and $50 to dispose of it properly, hardly anybody is going to dump illegally. Even if their trash is bulky and worthless (like a soiled mattress) rather than bulky and useful, like scrap metal.

My state raised its littering penalties 16 years ago:

https://products.kitsapsun.com/archive/2003/07-31/215440_fin...

Up to $1025 for throwing a cigarette out a car window. Up to $5000 if you dump more than a cubic yard of trash!

But I still regularly find roadside cigarettes and even spot drivers tossing them, because it's still rarely enforced. It's a huge roulette wheel with an unreasonably low chance of ever landing on 0 and an unreasonably high penalty if someone ever does. I think that we would get much better compliance overall, without the risk of occasionally ruining a low-income person's life, if the cigarette-littering penalty were only $20 but most incidents could actually be penalized.