Highway litter costs Missouri $5 million a year

Monday, April 9, 2012

ST. LOUIS (AP) — State officials say cleaning up litter along Missouri’s highways costs about $5 million a year.

And a spokesman for the Department of Conservation says that agency spends about $1 million a year to pick up litter in the state’s forests, conservation areas and river access.

Spokesman Dan Zarlenga says the agency writes hundreds of tickets a year to litterbugs.

To bring attention to the problem, the Missouri departments of transportation and conservation are holding their annual No More Trash! effort, which runs through the month of April.

The state is seeking more volunteers to pick up trash this month. But mostly, they are asking Missourians not to litter in the first place.

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dokeus6 1 year, 1 month ago

Start slapping the litter bugs with Heavier Fines. I bet they stop throwing their stuff out their windows if they have to pay a 100 dollar or more fine. Start with the cigarette butts!!!!

donroger 1 year, 1 month ago

Why don't we have people on that collect government checks picking up trash along with larger fines?

spelchek 1 year, 1 month ago

asb fails to see how all the examples they mention below actually produce something. The welfare recipients you mention (I assume) don't produce anything, except future welfare recipients.

Yes, you assume. A government check must mean welfare. A single mom raising the next generation of consumers can't be as much on welfare as an oil tycoon squeezing another 2% profit out of the work of his employees.

spelchek 1 year, 1 month ago

"A government check must mean welfare." -- If I contribute to the system and receive a check, it's a return. If I don't contribute to the system and receive a check, it's welfare. That simple. You also realize that share holders expect the "oil tycoon" to produce numbers or bye bye retirement...right? Why do you see "profit" as sinful and "single mom" as aspiring? Does a single mom sign your paycheck?

asb 1 year, 1 month ago

. . . people that collect government checks picking up trash . . . great idea! Let's start with a few wall street bailout execs, toss in a couple of oil co execs, then a busload of corporate Ag subsidy mongers . . . hey, this could work!

JCLifer 1 year, 1 month ago

I like that idea!

viktorkowski 1 year, 1 month ago

ugg and I was so thinking of creating a super pac so i could get some of the free government money. invest $2 million in donations and get $50 million from the gov. how can I go wrong. thanks for ruining my day

tonto_goldberg 1 year, 1 month ago

The green energy people are amateurs, and you're not thinking in big enough terms. Buy control of a bank, run it into bankruptcy, and get a bailout and a big bonus for "saving" it. One of the things Obama did right was firing the senior GM management people who ran the company into the toilet.

viktorkowski 1 year, 1 month ago

i looked at their financials. I think it had more to do with healthcare cost of retirees. do you throw someone that has given you 30+ years under the bus when they leave if you promised them something when you hired them? get control of healthcare costs and the problem goes away. unions represent such a tiny fraction of the modern workforce that they are now marginal at best.

him 1 year, 1 month ago

I like that idea.... You want your welfare check? pass this drug test and get out there and pick up trash and earn it.

asb 1 year, 1 month ago

Right, you want your subsidy check, your TIFF, your tax rebate? Get out there and earn it! At least earn what your lawyers have conned the government out of. Oh, and never mind the drug test, here's a martini or a spliff for whoever picks up the most . . .

asb 1 year, 1 month ago

Not comparable perhaps, but while most of what you consider welfare is actually a good thing that makes life more bearable for many, your examples are government largesse aimed at increasing one profit margin at the expense of others, sort of government interference in the market . . . welfare to the poor, indegent infirm and retired is good, while welfare to businesses who's lawyers have made the tax code the labrynth of folly we have today, is bad.

lovemykids 1 year, 1 month ago

Why blame everything on liberals? The republicans have destroyed just as much of your freedom. Bush himself passed a bill making it ok to spy on American citizens. Obama followed that up with a bill making it ok to hold those same Americans indefinately. Bush started bailouts and Obama followed up by ok-ing them. My point is simple: drop the two party crud and suddenly you see the truth. Both sides have had about 200 years to work us into believing that we are better off than the rest of the world. The truth is that they LIKE us to believe that one side is wrong. It makes us much easier to control when we are divided like this. Stop hating the liberal, stop hating the conservative, start hating the government complex that is raping us all.

"United we stand. Divided we fall"

Sequoia 1 year, 1 month ago

I think it is important to remember another important truth: "Rape" isn't a great word to describe anything except actual rape. Yes, there are public and private forces with mostly good intentions and many unintended consequences that need to be analyzed.... but there is a popular level of hostility toward all institutions among Americans these days that just seems off. Let's not trivialize real evil indulging in hyperbole. Let's keep some perspective and don't throw all our babies out with the bathwater.

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