FBinNY 

People have been chucking stuff out of cars as long as there were bottles and takeaway containers, and car windows. In some areas I can predict how long it takes to drink shakes by the radius of the circle of highest concentration of discarded containers.

One example of laws that did work, and where the unexpected consequences were all good is the bottle deposit laws. These days with curbside recycling many argue that they're a nuisance, and since bottles are all crushed rather than refilled there's no need to return empties to the point of purchase. This might be true for what's brought home and drunk out of the fridge, but not for what's consumed outdoors.

I have no illusions that 5 cents is enough motivation for people not to litter, but here's where the unexpected benefit kicks in. All over the NY metro area there are self-employed independent recyclers, aka street people. They wander all over collecting bottles and cans and bring them back for the deposit. People hate them when bring in trash bags full of bottles, many of which they've pulled from street trash bins. But they also pick countless containers off the street every day.

Since the deposit bills ware written back when glass bottles were refilled, they exempted liquor bottles because of various liquor laws and because of the logistics, wherein those weren't delivered in high volume by trucks that could take back empties. These days, bottle deposits are handled by vending machines which crush the bottles and dispense a receipt. The only issue is accounting which is handled by bar codes on the bottles.

That means there's no longer a good reason to exempt liquor bottles, but 5 cents isn't going to do the trick. IMO the bottle deposit laws should be extended to wine and liquor bottles, and considering the cost of the product and fragility of the empties, the deposit needs to be in the range of a dollar or so. No great hardship to anybody would be involved and it would help keep streets clean.