More tickets, fines coming for people found littering on highways

Littering and illegal dumping has been an ongoing issue on Newfoundland and Labrador's highways, and the province says it's going to get tougher on violators.

Service NL Minister Dan Crummell was at the CBC community cleanup Friday and announced the province would be handing out "hard tickets" for people caught littering.

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Crummell said the province has been working on prevention and awareness, as well as giving out mostly warning tickets, but has come to a point where something more needs to be done.

"We're changing how we're going to the roads of our province — we're going to start issuing hard tickets now," he said.

"We just want to let the people of the province know that we're going to step up enforcement and we're going to be giving out hard tickets."

We're changing how we're going to the roads of our province — we're going to start issuing hard tickets now.- Service NL Minister Dan Crummell

According to Crummell, the fines range from a minimum of $125, and can go as high as $600 for anyone found littering on the highways.

The challenging part, he said, will be ensuring the people who receive the fines are actually paying them.

"It's a difficult situation because a lot of the people that are doing these illegal activities are people that have no fixed address, they're hard to track down. They're the people out there that are creating some of the, most of the crime that's happening in our province," said Crummell.

"Hard tickets for hard tickets, I like that. Maybe we'll use that as part of our communications," Crummell said to CBC's St. John's Morning Show host Anthony Germain.

Crummell said the people responsible for the litter need to realize it's time to change their behaviour, and if they need to be ticketed to learn that, then that's what will happen.

Service NL reminds the public that large objects like washers, dryers, and furniture must be properly secured with straps or ropes capable of restraining the weight of the object.

Other loads of smaller debris must be covered with a tarp or netted material to prevent items from blowing around or falling from the load.