Woman fined $1,000 for littering

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BONNER SPRINGS, Kan., July 17 (UPI) -- A Kansas woman was fined $1,000 for throwing tea bottles in her neighbor's yard every day for two years, officials say.

Carole Green of Bonner Springs pleaded guilty in court Friday to four counts of misdemeanor littering, The Lawrence Journal World reported. Judge Gunnar Sundby set the fine at $250 on each count.

Green was ticketed after Gary Bukaty, who lives about 2 miles away from Green, submitted photographs of Green throwing empty tea bottles in his yard to Leavenworth County Sheriff's Office.

Bukaty says the bottles started appearing in his yard about two years ago and quickly increased from one or two a week to almost every day. "I felt like someone was targeting me," Bukaty said. "The way the bottles were right there by my mailbox and the way the driver would stop or slow down to throw out the bottle."

"It was nothing personal," Green told the judge. "If I had to do it over again, of course, I wouldn't do it." She also submitted a letter to the judge explaining her struggle with impulse control, which was take into consideration when the judge imposed the fines.

Although happy with the outcome, Bukaty is still confused about the circumstances.

"Who throws a bottle out the same place, every day?" he asked. "Who litters on Earth Day and Easter?"