Dive Brief:
- St Louis, MO spends $4 million a year cleaning illegal dumping and has leveraged a task force targeting this behavior, yet the problem runs rampant, according to many residents in several neighborhoods. They say their alleys are filled with trash and large items, like furniture, tires and big screen TVs.
- City officials told KMOV that none of the cases cited in that news outlet were reported to the Citizens’ Service Bureau. And despite a once monthly bulk pick up, many people put their trash out weeks before the collection date or dump their refuse in undesignated spaces.
- Citizens have also cited safety and traffic concerns. "I've seen kids play in [the trash and larger items], which seems really dangerous to us," said Noah Rosenberg, a Fox Park resident, to KMOV. He also said his wife was backing out of their garage and hit a large illegally dumped object blocking her path.
Dive Insight:
"People just see our alley as a dumpster because they don't know who is living here and they don't care," said Rosenberg, who notes the problem has persisted for at least the seven years he's lived in Fox Park.
Illegal dumping happens almost everywhere, whether in neighborhoods or designated recycle drop off sites. And the flow of unwanted waste is costly to municipalities; Los Angeles spends $12 million a year hauling illegally dumped waste.
Some communities have adopted measures — from adding thousands of waste bins to littered areas, to streamlined-sweeping programs. But in cases like Los Angeles and St. Louis, where there are large numbers of citizens who violate the rules, there is a need for amped up enforcement of anti-dumping laws and to encourage residents to report violations.
