Have you ever taken a load of garbage out along a quiet gravel road somewhere and just tossed it into the ditch?
No? Then brace yourself. There are people around here who dump their trash in the countryside, offloading their inconvenience on the roads and in the pubic right of ways.
A recent instance came to light last week along 130th Street east of Perry.
“It’s getting bad,” said the local landowner who cleans up the messes. “This is the third time in the last 10 days that trash has been dumped in the ditch just a quarter-mile from here. There is also a deep freezer full of food, but that was there before the trash. I picked up three large bags of trash over the weekend.”
The landowner said personal information was found in the garbage. Ted Trewin, environmental health coordinator in the Dallas County Public Health Department, said the Dallas County Secondary Roads Department collects the trash in such cases, and the Dallas County Sheriff’s office follows up and attempts to identify the people illegally dumping.
Dumping in public right of ways is a clear violation of the Iowa Code and the city of Perry Code of Ordinances.
Iowa Code 321.369 states unambiguously that one must “not throw or deposit upon a highway any glass bottle, glass, nails, tacks, wire, cans, trash, garbage, rubbish, litter, offal or any other debris. A person shall not throw or deposit upon a highway a substance likely to injure any person, animal or vehicle upon the highway.”
Violators of Iowa Code 321.369 face a civil penalty of $70.
Similarly, Iowa Code 455B.307A says one must “not discard solid waste onto or in any water or land of the state.” Violators of this code section are tagged with a $1,000 fine for each violation, with half the fine going to the Iowa Department of Transportation “for purposes of the cleanup of litter and illegally discarded solid waste” and half going to “the general fund of the county in which the violation occurred to be used exclusively for the cleanup and prevention of illegal dumping.”
Section 105.07 of the Perry City Code says that no one “shall discard any litter onto or in any water or land,” and section 105.08 says no one “shall dump or deposit or permit the
dumping or depositing of any solid waste on the surface of the ground or into a body or stream of water at any place other than a sanitary disposal project approved by the Director, unless a special permit to dump or deposit solid waste on land owned or leased by such person has been obtained from the Director.”
We do not know why the people in the case on 130th Street discarded their rubbish along the road. Maybe they were driving along with a load of trash in their vehicle, and they came upon an injured person or an injured animal, and they needed to make room in their vehicle to transport the injured person or animal, and so they violated the dumping law for the sake of a greater good, so to speak. This would be a generous explanation.
Since the crime has recurred in this area, it might be safe to conclude that either this is premeditated illegal dumping, or trash-hauling motorists are encountering a lot more injured persons or animals in this area than the law of averages would predict.
At any rate, such crimes remind us that when we throw something away, there really is no “away.” Our refuse does not disappear merely because we cease to think about it. The city of Perry, for instance, now pays $37 a ton to dump its residents’ garbage at the Metro Park West Landfill north of town. The city also pays $75 a ton to dump its residents’ recyclable materials at International Paper in Des Moines.
I found out last week what it costs the city of Perry to dispose of both garbage and recycling. I stopped at city hall and talked to the mayor about all of the improper items in the recycling dumpsters by the police station. I was shocked when I found out that what used to make a little money for the city is now costing the city a lot of money. Myself I feel that the recycling program needs to be discontinued in Perry. Besides the added cost and wear on city equipment, a lot of recycling now ends up in a landfill anyway.
For heaven’s sake, no. Let’s not discontinue the program. Perhaps there should be more convenient ways of disposing old paint, batteries and such. It shouldn’t cost so much to be rid of old TVs either. Maybe the cost of disposal should be included in their purchase price. Same goes for old computers and monitors. Also, Frog Creek is often in wretched shape because of all the garbage in and around it. I know for fact a lot of people have community service as part of their sentences. Maybe the city and county could invest in some hip boots and get the creek unclogged by those so sentenced. Last year there was a dam made from trash and garbage in Frog Creek just upstream of the arched bridge on the nature trail south of the bike trail. It was disgraceful.