Illegal dumping is a particular type of littering where people go out of their way to dump their rubbish.
It can be of a lower order such as small bags of rubbish in urban streets, in parks or in building site bins or tossing used furniture or other items on vacant land or into the bush.
More serious illegal dumping occurs where people fill up trailers and trucks with all sorts of items and materials and dump them in an area where they think they will not be seen such as National Parks, bushland reserves, parks, industrial and building sites or interestingly, outside charity bins and stores and median strips.
The reasons for this behaviour usually include the distance required to get to a landfill site (rubbish dump), not wanting to pay to get rid of rubbish and laziness.
Illegal dumping can be prosecuted under the Litter Act 1979 and can attract an infringement notice of $200 or a maximum penalty of $1,000 if taken to court.
In the future, the Litter Act will be amended to greatly increase the penalties for illegal dumping, up to $2500 for individuals and $5000 for corporate bodies.
