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It starts with one item. Maybe an old mattress or table, tossed on the side of the road a block from your house. You drive past it on your way to work, without a second thought.
Come home later that evening, though, and now there’s a pile. A broken TV set. Pieces of a wooden fence. Some filthy pillows. Several palm fronds.
It looks ugly, and it’s in your neighborhood. But what can you do about it?
“That’s illegal dumping and you can, and should, report it to us right away,” said Michael Fernandez, Director of the Miami-Dade County Department of Solid Waste Management, or DSWM. “If you see someone in the act of dumping illegally, don’t confront them, call 911 to report illegal dumping in progress. If you see illegal dumping after the fact, you can report it by calling 311, visiting our website at miamidade.gov/solidwaste, or using our MDC Solid Waste app for Apple and Android devices.”
Call 911 for illegal dumping?
“Oh yes, illegal dumping is a crime, a serious crime,” Fernandez explained. “You can get a hefty fine, have your vehicle confiscated, maybe even get arrested—yes, arrested—all for illegal dumping.”
DSWM has an ad campaign running—Dirty Crimes Carry Fines—to teach residents how they can help fight illegal dumping.
The campaign is backed up by a force of code enforcement officers dedicated to combating illegal dumping throughout unincorporated Miami-Dade County and the municipalities served by DSWM (Aventura, Cutler Bay, Doral, Miami Gardens, Miami Lakes, Opa-locka, Palmetto Bay, Pinecrest and Sunny Isles Beach). They use a variety of investigative techniques to catch those who dump illegally across the county. And they work with the Miami-Dade Police Department, who arrest the most egregious violators.
Among the more interesting tools in their arsenal are hidden cameras.
“Over the past couple of years, we’ve used still and video cameras to catch some of these people in the act,” Fernandez said. “The videos are especially popular; we’ve shared them with local news and posted them on our social media channels. We’ve caught quite a few outrageous cases on video, such as a grandfather and grandson team of illegal dumpers, a girlfriend with misguided loyalty who accepted a $2,500 fine rather than give up her boyfriend, who we found illegally dumping on camera, and a business owner who instructed his employees to dump illegally. He and his employees ended up getting arrested, his business truck was confiscated, he was stuck with a fine for $510 (for hauling waste without a permit)—and he ended up having to clean up his own mess anyway, at his expense.”
For more about DSWM and illegal dumping in Miami-Dade, visit www.miamidade.gov/solidwaste, call 311 or follow DSWM on social media: @MiamiDadeSolidWaste on Facebook and @miamidadeswm for Twitter.
Frank Calderon is Communications Manager for the Miami-Dade County Department of Solid Waste Management. He has been with the department since 2009.
