Increasing Illegal Dumping Fines

HB 4325 amended the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act’s (NREPA) Part 89, which defines littering, to add higher fines for large amounts of illegally dumped trash. This bill seeks to address the issue of the illegal dumping of large amounts of trash in both urban and rural areas. The bill would add a maximum $2500 fine for litter covering more than three cubic feet and a maximum $5000 fine for anything more than 135 cubic feet. The fines would be used to cover clean-up and remediation costs. 

In 2022, the Department of Transportation spent $7.7 million cleaning up trash on roadsides across Michigan, which does not even include the costs to the local budgets of municipalities that bear the clean-up costs of trash within their communities. This bill would help to clean up communities, discourage illegal dumping of trash, and hold those who dump large amounts of trash accountable for the cost of cleaning up their mess.