Story Archive

Trashy Neighbors

For two years, Gary Bukaty of Bonner Springs, Kan., found an empty tea bottle in his yard, quickly increasing from once or twice a week to almost daily. “Every day?” asked an exasperated Bukaty. “Who litters on Earth Day and Easter?” He set up a camera and finally caught Carole Green tossing a bottle out of her SUV. “It was nothing personal,” Green told the judge at her hearing. She said Bukaty’s house is the exact distance it takes for her to finish her morning bottle of tea on the way to work, and she was tossing them there out of habit, not malice. Green told the judge she has a history of “impulse control issues.” The judge ordered her to pay $1,160 in fines and court costs, suggesting the amount could be reduced by performing community service. (MS/Lawrence Journal-World) ...You know, the deposit on the bottles might just have covered that amount.