Residents of Wicomico County are fed up with local litter- bugs

Limiting Litter

MARYLAND – Plastic bottles pollute our waterways and pose a threat to wildlife and human health, according to the Sierra Club. Many have taken environmental stewardship into their own hands about a proposal to keep Maryland Clean.

Tired of Trash

Whether it’s water, soda, or beer; plastic, glass, or even a tin can; The residents of Wicomico County say they are tired of the trash.

Wicomico Clean, the Sierra Club, and other organizations across the state have pre-filed what’s called the Bottle Bill for the 2025 Maryland General Assembly session. The first step of the bill would bring so-called reverse vending machines to the state, where users can exchange bottles for cash; 10 to 15 cents per glass, plastic, or metal.

Resisting Requirements 

But not everyone thinks a Bottle Bill is the right move. Maryland state Senator Mary Beth Carozza supports volunteer cleaning efforts but says mandates will hurt small businesses. “This is a mandate; this is a requirement. It means that you would be requiring the retail locations and restaurants to set aside storage space or have an area for what they call a reverse vending machine. Well, a lot of these small businesses and operations, they don’t have space for that.”

Cleaning the Community

Mark Engberg is a volunteer with Wicomico Clean. He says more than 5 billion containers end up in the state’s landfills each year, and only a small percentage is recycled. “When we were kids growing up, we always got deposits on our bottles, so we’d like to go back to that and prevent some of this roadside litter, that’s just insurmountable… We need the public to understand that throwing litter into our environment is just unacceptable. The culture needs to change. And getting something like the bottle bill behind this is going to make people wake up and realize that things can’t just go out the window or end up on the roadside.”

Takes Times

He added that a change like this won’t be easy. “Getting the bill passed and then creating the infrastructure for the manufactures, the businesses, everybody to comply recycled containers. So, it won’t happen overnight, but it is feasible.”

In Maryland, the penalties for littering range from a 15-hundred dollars fine and 30 days in jail, to a 30 thousand dollar fine with a possibility of 5 years in prison. You can follow Wicomico Clean on Facebook for information on upcoming community clean ups.