The cleanup of more than 7,000 tons of litter in North Carolina cost state agencies, local governments and nonprofits more than $56 million in 2023, according to a new report.
Those figures highlighted in “The Cost of Litter in North Carolina,” a 14-page report created through a collaboration of nonprofits and the Duke University Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, are just the tip of the trash pile.
Supporter Spotlight
“That’s a severe undercount,” said Rob Clark, Cape Fear River Watch Water Quality Programs manager and a coauthor of the report. “The issue is much, much worse than this report was able to convey.”
The figures included in the report were pulled together from information obtained through public records requests, informal requests, and budgets from the North Carolina Department of Transportation and 44 nonprofits. Of nearly 40 of the municipalities requested to provide information, 19 responded. There are more than 500 municipalities in the state.
Even on the low, low end, the pounds of litter and costs associated with removing it from roadsides, ditches, and creek and river banks, to name a few, conveys a narrative that North Carolina has a costly, statewide litter problem.
But the economic impacts of litter are only part of the story, one the report’s authors hope to place into the hands of state legislators.
That’s because the basic approach to addressing litter in the state — spending money to clean it up — is not efficient, Clark said.
Supporter Spotlight
“It doesn’t address the issue properly,” he said. “It addresses the byproduct of the litter issue, but not the sources. It’s like you’re Band-Aiding over an artery. It’s not efficient or sufficient.”
That’s why the report, which was also compiled by North Carolina Conservation Network, Haw River Assembly, and MountainTrue, includes recommendations aimed at reducing litter at the source, keeping it out of the environment, and saving tax dollars.
One of the report’s main recommendations, Clark said, is that the North Carolina General Assembly reinstate the ability of local governments to regulate auxiliary containers, specifically single-use plastics such as grocery bags, cups, bottles and other types of food packaging.
In a last-minute move, legislators injected into the 2023 state budget language that prohibits counties and cities from adopting rules, regulations, ordinances, or resolutions that restrict, tax, or charge fees on auxiliary containers.
The provision stopped locally elected officials in Asheville from moving ahead on a vote to ban single-use plastic bags and Styrofoam food containers.
“We were really close for that to come up to a vote here locally and then the General Assembly put that provision into the state budget,” said coauthor Anna Alsobrook, French Broad Riverkeeper and MountainTrue’s French Broad watershed science and policy manager.
The law also squashed local elected officials in Durham from deciding whether to require retailers tack on a 10-cent fee for each plastic bag given out to customers in restaurants, grocery stores and shops.
“It’s really unfortunate that the state legislature took away the right of local governments to regulate pollution in their own jurisdictions,” Alsobrook said. “We’re hoping to change that.”
North Carolina Sen. Julie Mayfield, D-Buncombe, and Durham Democrats Sen. Natalie Murdock and Sen. Sophia Chitlik, last month introduced a bill that would repeal limitations on auxiliary containers.
The same year legislators banned a ban on single-use plastics, a survey conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy showed that more than 80% of some 650-700 North Carolinians polled across the state supported regulations on single-use plastics, Alsobrook said.
The report found that the amount of single-use plastic litter – everything from cigarette butts, Styrofoam, bottles, bags, and food wrappers – picked up throughout the state has steadily climbed since the late 1960s.
In the ravages left in western North Carolina from Hurricane Helene, there is one rather ominous, tell-tale sign illustrating the abundance of single-use plastics in the environment.
“There’s a ton of devastation all over the place, but there’s tons and tons of plastic films and bags hanging from trees in any given direction,” Alsobrook said. “I think that was one of the most stark things we saw for a really long time. It’s very apocalyptic looking.”
And there is ongoing research about the potential human health effects of microplastics, which are considered ubiquitous in the environment because they have been found in every ecosystem on the planet.
Other recommendations in the report include the statewide implementation of a bottle deposit system where residents would receive a deposit for returning empty, single-use bottles, using the Clean Water Act in waters declared federally impaired as a result of litter pollution, and boosting funding the state transportation department’s litter cleanup efforts.
The North Carolina Department of Transportation “by far” carries the burden for litter cleanup in the state, the report concludes.
NCDOT spent more than $25 million of taxpayer funds to clean litter in 2023, according to the report. The department has spent about $270 million on litter cleanup over the past 15 years.
Recommendations included in the report are not new, “crazy ideas,” but rather policies that exist in other states and countries, Clark said.
“We’re just trying to take good policies and procedures that have worked in other places and implement them in our state,” he said. “Litter is, I think, viewed as an individual issue in our society. It’s seen as a failure of an individual, a litterbug. But really the reality of the situation is it’s a production issue, especially with plastic. There’s just so much production that we’re essentially drowning in it. We need to seriously address force reduction if we’re really going to get a handle on it.”
