The Law on Illegal Dumping

§22-15A-4. Unlawful disposal of litter; civil and criminal penalty; litter control fund; evidence; notice violations; litter receptacle placement; penalty; duty to enforce violations.
(a) (1) No person shall place, deposit, dump, throw or cause to be placed, deposited, dumped or thrown any litter as defined in section two of this article, in or upon any public or private highway, road, street or alley; any private property; any public property; or the waters of the state or within one hundred feet of the waters of this state, except in a proper litter or other solid waste receptacle.
(2) It is unlawful for any person to place, deposit, dump, throw or cause to be placed, deposited, dumped or thrown any litter from a motor vehicle or other conveyance or to perform any act which constitutes a violation of the motor vehicle laws contained in section fourteen, article fourteen, chapter seventeen-c of this code.
(3) If any litter is placed, deposited, dumped, discharged, thrown or caused to be placed, deposited, dumped or thrown from a motor vehicle, boat, airplane or other conveyance, it is prima facie evidence that the owner or the operator of the motor vehicle, boat, airplane or other conveyance intended to violate the provisions of this section.
(4) Any person who violates the provisions of this section by placing, depositing, dumping or throwing or causing to be placed, deposited, dumped or thrown any litter, not collected for commercial purposes, in an amount not exceeding one hundred pounds in weight or twenty-seven cubic feet in size, is guilty of a misdemeanor. Upon conviction, he or she is subject to a fine of not less than $100 nor more than $1,000, or in the discretion of the court, sentenced to perform community service by cleaning up litter from any public highway, road, street, alley or any other public park or public property, or waters of the state, as designated by the court, for not less than eight nor more than sixteen hours, or both.
(5) Any person who violates the provisions of this section by placing, depositing, dumping or throwing or causing to be placed, deposited, dumped or thrown any litter, not collected for commercial purposes, in an amount greater than one hundred pounds in weight or twenty-seven cubic feet in size, but less than five hundred pounds in weight or two hundred sixteen cubic feet in size is guilty of a misdemeanor. Upon conviction he or she is subject to a fine of not less than $1,000 nor more than $2,000, or in the discretion of the court, may be sentenced to perform community service by cleaning up litter from any public highway, road, street, alley or any other public park or public property, or waters of the state, as designated by the court, for not less than sixteen nor more than thirty-two hours, or both.
(6) Any person who violates the provisions of this section by placing, depositing, dumping or throwing or causing to be placed, deposited, dumped or thrown any litter in an amount greater than five hundred pounds in weight or two hundred sixteen cubic feet in size or any amount which had been collected for commercial purposes is guilty of a misdemeanor. Upon conviction, the person is subject to a fine not less than $2,500 or not more than $25,000 or confinement in jail for not more than one year or both. In addition, the violator may be guilty of creating or contributing to an open dump as defined in section two, article fifteen, chapter twenty-two of this code and subject to the enforcement provisions of section fifteen of said article.
(7) Any person convicted of a second or subsequent violation of this section is subject to double the authorized range of fines and community service for the subsection violated.
(8) The sentence of litter clean up shall be verified by environmental inspectors from the Department of Environmental Protection. Any defendant receiving the sentence of litter clean up shall provide, within a time to be set by the court, written acknowledgment from an environmental inspector that the sentence has been completed and the litter has been disposed of lawfully.
(9) Any person who has been found by the court to have willfully failed to comply with the terms of a litter clean up sentence imposed by the court pursuant to this section is subject to, at the discretion of the court, double the amount of the original fines and community service penalties originally ordered by the court.
(10) All law-enforcement agencies, officers and environmental inspectors shall enforce compliance with this section within the limits of each agency's statutory authority.
(11) No portion of this section restricts an owner, renter or lessee in the lawful use of his or her own private property or rented or leased property or to prohibit the disposal of any industrial and other wastes into waters of this state in a manner consistent with the provisions of article eleven, chapter twenty-two of this code. But if any owner, renter or lessee, private or otherwise, knowingly permits any such materials or substances to be placed, deposited, dumped or thrown in such location that high water or normal drainage conditions will cause any such materials or substances to wash into any waters of the state, it is prima facie evidence that the owner, renter or lessee intended to violate the provisions of this section: Provided, That if a landowner, renter or lessee, private or otherwise, reports any placing, depositing, dumping or throwing of these substances or materials upon his or her property to the prosecuting attorney, county commission, the Division of Natural Resources or the Department of Environmental Protection, the landowner, renter or lessee will be presumed to not have knowingly permitted the placing, depositing, dumping or throwing of the materials or substances.
(b) Any indication of ownership found in litter shall be prima facie evidence that the person identified violated the provisions of this section: Provided, That no inference may be drawn solely from the presence of any logo, trademark, trade name or other similar mass reproduced things of identifying character appearing on the found litter.
(c) Every person who is convicted of or pleads guilty to disposing of litter in violation of subsection (a) of this section shall pay a civil penalty in the sum of not less than $200 nor more than $1,000 as costs for clean up, investigation and prosecution of the case, in addition to any other court costs that the court is otherwise required by law to impose upon a convicted person.
The clerk of the circuit court, magistrate court or municipal court in which these additional costs are imposed shall, on or before the last day of each month, transmit fifty percent of a civil penalty received pursuant to this section to the State Treasurer for deposit in the State Treasury to the credit of a special revenue fund to be known as the Litter Control Fund which is hereby continued and transferred to the Department of Environmental Protection. Expenditures for purposes set forth in this section are not authorized from collections but are to be made only in accordance with appropriation and in accordance with the provisions of article three, chapter twelve of this code and upon fulfillment of the provisions set forth in article two, chapter five-a of this code. Amounts collected which are found from time to time to exceed the funds needed for the purposes set forth in this article may be transferred to other accounts or funds and designated for other purposes by appropriation of the Legislature.
(d) The remaining fifty percent of each civil penalty collected pursuant to this section shall be transmitted to the county or regional solid waste authority in the county where the litter violation occurred. Moneys shall be expended by the county or regional solid waste authority for the purpose of litter prevention, clean up and enforcement. The county commission shall cooperate with the county or regional solid waste authority serving the respective county to develop a coordinated litter control program pursuant to section eight, article four, chapter twenty-two-c of this code.
(e) The Commissioner of the Division of Motor Vehicles, upon registering a motor vehicle or issuing an operator's or chauffeur's license, shall issue to the owner or licensee, as the case may be, a summary of this section and section fourteen, article fourteen, chapter seventeen-c of the code.
(f) The Commissioner of the Division of Highways shall cause appropriate signs to be placed at the state boundary on each primary and secondary road, and at other locations throughout the state, informing those entering the state of the maximum penalty provided for disposing of litter in violation of subsection (a) of this section.
(g) Any state agency or political subdivision that owns, operates or otherwise controls any public area as may be designated by the secretary by rule promulgated pursuant to subdivision (8), subsection (a), section three of this article shall procure and place litter receptacles at its own expense upon its premises and shall remove and dispose of litter collected in the litter receptacles. After receiving two written warnings from any law-enforcement officer or officers to comply with this subsection or the rules of the secretary, any state agency or political subdivision that fails to place and maintain the litter receptacles upon its premises in violation of this subsection or the rules of the secretary shall be fined $30 per day of the violation.