Tennessee’s Positive Approach to Litter Control

TN Litter Grant Program is comprehensive litter collection program.  In 1979, the TN Legislature put a moratorium on litter control/bottle bill proposals to comprehensively study options. Through the “Safe Growth Plan for Tennessee” in 1980, TN Legislature passed a specialty tax on malt beverage and soft drink industries (§57-5-201 and §67-4-402) to fund a comprehensive, county-based litter abatement program (§41-2-123) for the collection of litter along roadways. This collection program addresses all types and manner of litter and misplaced trash.  The tax, based on consumer consumption, raises approximately $3 to $4 million per year and is administered by TN Department of Transportation, Highway Beautification Office. The funds are distributed to all 95 counties via formula of road mileage and population over a base allocation ($14,737 in 2001).

TN Litter Grant Program is comprehensive litter prevention program.  After fifteen years of roadside collection, TDOT/HBO understood that litter pickup was only cosmetic and did not address the root cause of litter – behavior and people mishandling their solid waste.  Over a three-year period, TDOT phased into the Litter Grant Program an education component to teach litter prevention. Counties are required to expend 15% to 30% on education programs addressing students, adults, media, government and/or business. Program manual and education guides were distributed (1996) and each county submits an annual plan of work for collection and for litter prevention education. Keep America Beautiful, Inc. and Keep Tennessee Beautiful do not advocate a “product solution” for the litter issue because the issue is social – littering behavior – and funds should go for prevention education – teach the child and retrain the adult – for responsible handling of all solid waste.

TN Litter Grant Program allows prisoners to perform community services.  LGP grant allows prisoners sentenced (§40-23-104 and §40-35-311) to county workhouse to work on county roads to pick up litter and trash. For each day worked, the prisoner’s sentence is reduced by two days (§41-2-123(3)). This has three-fold benefit 1) productive community work by prisoners, 2) cleaner roadsides in community, and 3) reduce workhouse crowding.

TN Litter Grant Program will sunset if mandatory deposit legislation passed.  TN Code §67-4-402 allows in comptrollers notes that taxing authorization for Litter Grant Program will stop on June 30 of any year that state or federal deposit legislation takes effect. The current LGP is authorized until June 30, 2005.

Bottles and cans are a minor portion of roadside litter.  After five years of LGP, TDOT asked all the County LGP Administrators to estimate the type and percentage of litter collected over a two-month period. The reports showed that bottles, cans and fast food packaging were 23% of the total volume collected.  In 1996, an AdoptAHighway group (Environmental Science Class, Chattanooga  State) collected and cataloged the litter from a two-mile suburban highway. The results were 44.3% plastic, 29.9% paper, 8.3% metal, 7.1% polystyrene, 4% unusual (clothing, building materials, batteries), 3.8% glass and 2.4% rubber. The item with highest count in each of the collection surveys was cigarette butts, ranging from 471 to 6,902.  In March 1998, a student in a winning junior-high Science Fair Project in Washington County, TN systematically collected 1,179 pieces of litter located 200 feet from a stop sign at three locations. The results were 45% cigarette butts, 20% paper, 19% plastic, 7% polystyrene foam, 5% aluminum, 3% glass and 1% steel. These varied TN surveys consistently show that bottles and cans are a minor portion of the roadside litter problem.

Tennessee has 25% waste diversion goal by 2003. The TN Solid Waste Management Act of 1991 set a 25% waste reduction goal from Class I landfills, rather than a recycling goal for the state. Solid Waste Regions and counties are near accomplishment of this goal by diversion of construction/demolition debris from Class I Landfills, composting yard wastes, recycling collection, and source reduction.

TN Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC); Division of Community Assistance does not publish an interim percentage or a recycling rate. Mandated return and recycling of glass, aluminum and PET bottles would shift record keeping from a limited number of collection/processing facilities to huge number of retail establishments and would further complicate data collection by TDEC.

Bottle Bill would be deterrent to municipal recycling programs, especially curbside collection.  TDEC has spent over $30 million on building the solid waste infrastructure within the 95 counties of Tennessee. The funds ensured the Class I landfill capacity (and closure), assured waste collection method for all citizens (Convenience  Centers, curbside, access to private haulers), provided recycling (drop-off, Convenience Centers, curbside,) and public education of waste management. Recycling collection programs are/should be based on transport to market, where the commodity is actually reprocessed (recycled) into a new product. The commodity markets are highly volatile to supply and demand, but the aluminum market has shown the most profit over the years. Multi-material collection programs depend on aluminum profits to subsidize their other materials. If a Bottle Bill were instituted, it would put a severe financial hardship on municipal recycling programs, especially curbside, as they would loose their “profit” commodity. Local governments would be forced to subsidize their recycling collection programs or cut the program to the citizens.

Negative incentives cannot sustain cultural change in behaviors or attitudes. Forced recycling by return deposit is a negative incentive to the individual.  Short-term return collections are high but do not sustain at this rate. Consumers view the incentive as a 5-cent personal cost retrieval and do not associate their action with social necessity of solid waste management.  Consumers opt for convenient collection of recyclables when they have a choice. This personal choice, based on conservation values, strong public education and convenience, has shown to be sustainable. A subjective example of this is New York City: Residents took their cans and bottles to Redemption Centers for 5-cent deposit but the transport was viewed as personally inconvenient. Residents began leaving their cans and bottles in their curbside garbage. An organized network of non-profits worked with homeless and street people to collect the cans and bottles, prior to garbage collection, and take to Redemption Centers to help fund the non-profit Shelters and Food  Centers.  What was perceived as anti-litter and pro-recycling legislation has become a social services funding program, based on scavenging garbage, with no oversight. 

Littering incentives from DUI legislation. The public opinion against drunk drivers and driving under the influence (DUI) is at an all time high – Tennessee has progressive sentencing of large fines, jail time, loss of license and vehicle, and community service time. Offenders do not want evidence in their vehicles, thus throwing out the physical evidence.  DUI penalties have a greater influence on behavior than any recycling or deposit refund benefit.  

Tennessee supports Keep America Beautiful System methods. Through Executive Orders (1989 and 1998), Tennessee supports public-private partnership efforts to facilitate Keep America Beautiful System (KABS) programming at the community level. The local KABS organization has staff and Board with mission to educate citizens to take greater responsibility for enhancing their community environment and focus their programming on litter prevention, solid waste handling and community enhancement. There are 23 KABS affiliates (2002) serving 53% of state’s population. Keep Tennessee Beautiful at the University of Memphis serves as state KAB agency and education contractor for TDOT.

2002 Document by Edith W. Heller, Keep TN Beautiful