I have been watching magnet fishing and people love to toss stuff over bridges without a second thought on the environmental impact. Hiding evidence I can almost understand but not lawnmowers, car batteries, etc.
It seems deeper fines should be made to discourage this terrible behavior.
Depending on what it is the cost is a lot more than $30 which is a big reason these things get dumped. An old fridge with toxic coolant could be closer to $1k.
Fun fact, those refrigerents can be (and are required to be) reclaimed and sold to recyclers. Old refrigerants that can no longer be legaly produced are actually worth an absurd amount of money when reclaimed because they can still be used but because they can’t legally be manufactured or imported the only source for them is stuff reclaimed out of other systems. Companies will pay absurd amounts of money to not have to refit their refrigeration systems to work with new refrigerants.
So if you have an old appliance still full of something like R-12 or R-22 then you have a gold mine to someone with the right equipment and certifications.