NEWTON, Kan. - Jill Rowland admits her crime. She threw away baby formula cans and a shampoo bottle.

Rowland says she can't believe that she and four other Newton residents were summoned to Municipal Court and fined Thursday for violating the city's mandatory recycling law.

Rowland, 26, was fined $50.

"This is ridiculous," she said.

The Newton residents are thought to be the first Kansans taken to court for failure to recycle, according to two groups that track recycling programs in the state.

All pleaded no contest and will be fined $25 per violation. They were warned that they would face stiffer fines -- or possibly five days in jail -- if they were caught with recyclables in their trash in the next six months.

Newton has a large backlog of such cases that it plans to prosecute, City Engineer Suzanne Loomis said.

Only seven communities in Kansas require residents to recycle. All are in Harvey County, where the County Commission adopted a resolution two years ago banning some recyclable items from the trash transfer station.

The county does not fine residents. Instead, it requires trash truck drivers caught dumping recyclables on the transfer station floor to pick the cans, bottles and papers out of the trash. In most communities, trash companies refuse to pick up trash if residents don't recycle, said Craig Simons, the county administrator.

Newton, where city crews pick up the trash, adopted an ordinance providing for fines of up to $100 for each day residents fail to recycle.

The ordinance saves taxpayers money, city officials said. The more residents recycle, the less the city has to pay to get rid of the trash its crews pick up.

The city has reduced the amount of garbage it throws away by 20 percent in the two years since recycling became law, Loomis said. Between 90 percent and 95 percent of residents recycle, he said.

Loomis said those being taken to court had repeatedly failed to recycle.

"It comes to a point of how else do you get through to people," Loomis said.

The ordinance raises legal issues, said Chiquita Cornelius, director of the Kansas Business and Industry Recycling Program. Courts have not issued a clear ruling on whether the garbage belongs to the city or the residents once it is put at the curb for pickup.

If it belongs to the city, she said, people could say, "I didn't do it."