FRANKFORT — A Senate committee Thursday approved a tax on garbage to finance cleaning up old dumps and landfills. The proposal also would take money from the Road Fund to pay for litter cleanup.

        The package is more modest than a solid waste bill passed by the full House, which would have imposed the garbage tax and another on containers and fast food cups.

        Senate Republican floor leader Dan Kelly said the package would make a substantial beginning toward cleaning up more than 500 old municipal landfills and an estimated 10,000 illegal, open dumps.

        Mr. Kelly, R-Springfield, said a $1 per ton tax on waste taken to Kentucky's permitted landfills would raise about $4.6 million a year. That money would be used to finance a $45 million bond issue.

        Natural Resources Secretary James Bickford acknowledged the state has no idea how much it will cost to close properly the old municipal landfills, but two in Lexington and Georgetown alone are expected to cost $14 million, or nearly a third of the total of the bond issue.

        The committee defeated a proposal to adopt the House plan.

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