TACOMA, Wash. – The City Council voted on Tuesday to adopt a new set of litter and illegal dumping code updates to further protect the health and safety of our neighborhoods. Deputy Mayor John Hines spearheaded the code updates, with co-sponsors Council Member Sarah Rumbaugh and Council Member Joe Bushnell, in response to resident concerns about litter and the need to address the littering of items that can cause damage or injury. The code changes aim to build on the City’s commitment to litter and debris cleanup in the public right-of-way, trail maintenance, business district litter can program, and community outreach and engagement strategies.
“While I have a deep pride in the grittiness of our city,” said Deputy Mayor Hines, “too often that grittiness seems to be related to the amount of litter we see in our streets. Since I joined the City Council, I have heard from countless residents that littering is not just an eyesore, but that it is a public health, public safety, and environmental concern. For that reason, we have taken many steps to address litter in our city, including launching Tidy-Up Tacoma and supporting volunteers who roll up their sleeves and do their part to help keep our city clean. We want our community to feel safe and proud of their neighborhoods, and this change in policy shows that we are committed to ensuring our community takes responsibility for its trash. I am hoping that this code change will signal to our residents that we need their help to make Tacoma a little less gritty, a little more pretty, and to keep it beautiful in the years ahead.”
The code changes include adopting the Washington state definition and penalty for potentially dangerous litter, such as glass, nails, and other items that are likely to injure a person or cause damage to a vehicle or other property. A violation for potentially dangerous litter in any amount will incur a Class 1 civil infraction. In addition, the code changes create a tiered scale for littering violations based on the amount of litter. Doing so removes the current criminal penalty for smaller-scale littering and converts the most egregious and large-scale illegal dumping acts to a gross misdemeanor. Violators will also be required to pay a litter clean-up restitution payment or pick up and remove the litter themselves.
“This update to our municipal code adapts the penalties of litter enforcement to be responsive to the amount and impact of litter people are leaving in our community,” said Council Member Rumbaugh. “It will allow the City to target the large, illegal dumping that most lowers quality of life. I also know it will take our entire community to put an end to littering in order to keep our neighborhoods clean and protect the environment that makes Tacoma a beautiful place to live. Public education has had a tremendous impact on changing behavior to prevent littering, and additional public education, outreach, and community building will be essential to putting an end to litter in Tacoma.”
“Litter impacts everyone in Tacoma. It impacts business, the environment, and how people feel when they’re out in public spaces,” said Council Member Bushnell. “It’s important that we make sure that, while most residents are doing the right thing and keeping Tacoma clean, we’re holding bad actors accountable. Our enforcement tools need to be right-sized for the offenses.”
The City encourages residents to continue reporting litter and illegal dumping through the Tacoma FIRST 311 system. More information is available here.
Good for you Tacoma City Council. Littering is an obnoxious, dangerous and unnecessary problem.
(1) I have had a tiny role in eliminating litter in Pierce County, Washington, City of Lakewood, I frequently walked on Nyanza Road SW circling onto Gravelly Lake Drive SW. In doing so I carried a grabber and a 5-gallon bucket picking up litter along the way.
After picking up dozens of cigarette butts, a week later irresponsible smokers managed to cover the street edge once more with dozens of their cancer-stick butts.
(2) While serving in law enforcement and following the experience of an attempted assault when a suspect threw a lit cigarette at my face, I began to observe the behavior of a significant percentage of smokers.
During traffic stops after asking smokers to put down their cigarettes to avoid another assault attempt and to avoid contracting cancer from second-hand smoke, many of them would take one last drag and with me standing outside their window in full uniform, they would toss their lit cigarette out the driver’s window. In a dramatic flare, I would follow the trajectory of the lit missle and bob my head up and down as it bounced on the ground. I could tell that when the violators saw the cigarette at the top of the arch and my head bob, they would say to themselves, “Oh, that was stupid.”
Why did they do that in front of a police officer? Because it is an ingrained nasty habit of what they do all the time.
I then requested that they step out of their car to pick up the cigarette butt and place it into their ashtray.
When I returned to their car with a traffic ticket for the original violation, I also issued a second ticket for throwing burning material out of their car. That ticket was $1,075.
Why $1,075? Because careless and thoughtless smokers burn forests, destroy homes and businesses, kill citizens, and injure and kill first responders.
I hoped that they and any of their friends and relatives who heard of the $1,075 penalty never threw a cigarette out the window again.
Keep up the good work, Tacoma.
Joseph Boyle
I have more to say about litter. I hope no one considers my verbose comment writing to be online litter.
Here is my true-life litter story about two generations of litter violators caught in the act at the same time.
During a school zone traffic stop for speeding, I was presented with two generations of litter violators; a family of litterbugs.
When I asked the female adult driver to put her cigarette down, she took a big drag, said, “Here”, and passed the burning cigarette over the top of her empty ashtray to her teenage daughter seated in the front passenger seat which cops referred to as “seat position #3”.
The daughter, who had probably witnessed her mother’s litterbug behavior thousands of times, rolled her passenger window down and threw the cigarette onto the ground.
When I returned to the driver with the speeding ticket, I asked her not to leave yet, and for the daughter to roll her window down.
Not wanting to inflame the situation, I simply folded the $1,075 burning material ticket in half and gave it along with the passenger’s driver’s license to the teen passenger. I informed them that it was a burning material litter ticket.
It has always been interesting to me that this violator, in fact, 100% of my burning material violators, never invited me to court if they contested the $1,075 ticket. Apparently, the violators did not want the judge to hear what I had to say.
I used a lighter approach with litter violations of non-burning material.
An example occurred when a carload of fast food cuisine eaters tossed their bags, cups, straws, partially eaten food and food wrappers out the car window into the parking lot.
I was sitting across the street watching when I saw them litter our planet. They were surprised when just after the garbage went out the window having barely hit the ground they had a marked patrol car with lights on parked behind them.
Since no one’s life or property was in danger from their litter, I gave them a choice.
Choice #1: They could exit their vehicle (cops call cars vehicles) and pick up the litter in the parking lot; that is all litter.
Choice #2: They could remain ensconced inside the comfort of their vehicle leaving the litter on the planet and I would issue them a littering ticket which was probably around $250.
Choice #1 always seemed to be the popular option.
I told them that having selected Choice #1 today, I was only issuing a verbal warning.
I went on to disclose that Deputy Boyle is known to be “omnipresent”. I then asked if they knew what omnipresent meant. Most violators, lacking a dictionary in their car said, “No.”
I educated them on the fact that omnipresent meant Deputy Boyle was everywhere at all times and that if I ever saw them litter again, I would only offer them a new choice, known as Choice #3. Choice #3 would be a combination of Choice #1 and Choice #2. They would pick up the litter and they would receive a littering ticket. No verbal warning for a repeat violation.
I have other true-life stories about Deputy Boyle’s omnipresence, but I will save that for another day.
Joseph Boyle