Raleigh County Litter Control Officer John Dunn finds a person’s medical information in a pile of garbage that was discovered in an illegal dump near Princewick recently.
BECKLEY, W.Va. — It should go without saying that taking trash into an unpopulated area instead of properly disposing of it is a poor decision, but according to the Raleigh County Solid Waste Authority many people still practice illegal dumping.
John Dunn, Raleigh County Litter Control officer, said that one individual, after accepting money to transport it to the landfill, took other people’s trash to a remote location and dumped it with the intention of returning and burning it.
“We received a Crime Stoppers tip. The person that called in had witnessed someone in a small red pickup truck, they gave the license plate number, they witnessed that person dumping large amounts of trash bags up on an old reclaim site down at Princewick.”
“We went up there and there were a lot of bags. They were white trash bags and we went through them and pulled out people’s information that was in the bags, letters and things like that. Basically, we tracked these people down and they had paid somebody to haul their trash to the landfill. “That person, instead of taking it to the landfill, took it up to this reclaim site and kept the money.
“They gave us the name and phone number of the man they had paid and we got in touch with him and he admitted that he had done it. Therefore, I issued him a ticket for commercial littering which has a minimum fine of $2,500 and/or up to a year in jail.
“This is not a unique case; we come across this stuff a lot…
