Proposed bill would use photographic evidence to crack down on littering in La.

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - Agents with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries are working with a state lawmaker to propose a bill that would use photographic evidence to crack down on littering.

“We will come out here in the morning, the early morning, you will see a lot of stuff blowing. When the wind is coming across the river and everything else…they do have a lot of wind and it will make the trash move,” Fred Taylor, who has owned Poor Boy Llyod’s in downtown Baton Rouge since the 80s’, told WAFB.

Taylor said he does not like looking at trash outside of his restaurant. But, he is not the only one who doesn’t like seeing trash all over Louisiana.

A video from LDWF shows a man dumping his trash on the side of the road. It’s a problem that wildlife agents said they want to fix.

“I mean when you think about people who dump tires or refrigerators, those things cause a lot of problems with just our drainage alone. Not to mention, just the disgust we see on our roadsides from people just throwing litter out of the windows,” State Rep. Phillip Devillier (R - Eunice).

Devillier is working on a bill that would allow wildlife agents to use their surveillance cameras as evidence to give out a citation to those who litter.

“They are not able to actually charge the individual that owns the vehicle unless they can have them on camera as well as clear evidence. So, this allows them to charge the owner, the registered owner of the vehicle for the crime of littering,” he added.

Under the proposed bill, if there is photographic evidence of a driver littering, along with their license plate, a citation can be issued.

“We are going to go to them and we will potentially read them their rights, and question them about what took place on that video. Get to the violator and issue the violator the citation,” LDWF enforcement agent Jason Stagg explained.

Citations would be issued for any type of trash from a foam cup to a cigarette.

The bill is scheduled for the House floor debate on Tuesday, April 12.

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