Westside Story – Spontaneous Dump

If anyone makes the world a more beautiful place, we should appreciate and thank them. Anyone can start a beautification project with their own home and then expand into their neighborhood. We can volunteer at a city park or a church or maybe a retirement home. Beautification people are beautiful people in my book.

There is another kind of people who I might describe as… Oh, wait I have a friend who has counseled me to stop labeling people with critical descriptors. She suggested to me that I merely focus on the issue and to do so without labeling the person responsible for the problem. I was just about to call these illegal dumpers human rejects, losers, or scum, but I am not going to do that because I am trying a new approach in an effort to become a new more sensitive Joe Boyle.

So I will let you come to your conclusion regarding what we should call people of this caliber, but I do not think it should be “good person.”

Allow me to share my photographic evidence depicting what these people do to our planet. You may select an appropriate name.

Illegal dumping. Illegal dumping.

 

Regardless what you may decide to call this kind of person, I do not like their behavior.

I say if you SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING. If you are out and about and you see someone dumping trash, and you are not in the middle of the Pierce County Landfill, write down a suspect and vehicle description including the license plate. Take a photo if you can including the license plate. Then call 911 to report illegal dumping. Do not put yourself in harms way when gathering evidence.

When I was a police officer, I loved to catch these blokes dumping and littering. When I finished with them, they experienced a new high level of motivation to remove their trash from their chosen illegal dump site. They would tell their friends they had been Deputy Boyleized and based on that educational experience, recommended to their friends that it is not wise to even think about throwing a tiny candy wrapper out of a moving vehicle.

A good number of smokers who habitually throw lit cigarette butts out of their car window experienced a two-step educational process. Step 1: They got out of their car and picked up the cigarette butt. Step 2: They fired up a new cigarette to help relax their nerves as they tried to figure out how they were going to pay for the $1,075 cigarette ticket.

You can use the smartphone app, MyLakewood311 when confronted with a large mound of illegally dumped trash. Send a smartphone photo along with the location and a description of the problem to MyLakewood311. The City of Lakewood does an excellent job in responding to garbage complaints. Lakewood will haul the dump pile away if it is in the city right-of-way. If it is in a yard, Lakewood has a plan for that too.

If you SEE SOMETHING SAY SOMETHING. Teach illegal dumpers a lesson. The law enforcement non-emergency phone number to 911 is T: 253-798-4721.