This week Detective Sidney Parker, the Travis County Sheriff department's sole environmental investigator installed surveillance cameras off of Lazy Creek Drive in an unincorporated part of Travis County near L.B.J. high school because the illegal dumping problem has gotten out of hand there.
"We're seeing more and more of it. People that are leaving their homes are just taking their stuff and dumping them. Contractors are not taking them to the landfill to save cost and dumping them so it's on the rise," said Detective Parker.
This weekend KVUE took a deeper look at the root causes of the growing phenomenon with illegal dumping.
We found the problem is not exclusive to central Texas.
According to Dr. John Ockels with the non-profit Texas Illegal Dumping Resource Center there are several factors contributing to illegal dumping.
Ockels says 15 years ago there were some 800 landfills in all of Texas. Tougher regulations has forced that number to dwindle to 200 statewide.
The slumping economy is another factor. Fewer people are now willing to pay to discard of their waste properly.
The last factor has to do with the increasing cost of getting rid of waste period.
According to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality or T.C.E.Q. there is no agency regulating what landfills are allowed to charge citizens to dump.
"From the time we opened in 1991, yes, prices have escalated," said Dennis Hobbs, with the Texas Disposal Systems Landfill in Southeast Travis County. "I mean, it's no different when you go in and fill up your gas tank, buy a loaf of bread, or anything else. Texas is still one of the lowest cost per ton in the country."
The cost of cleaning up trash illegally dumped is also expensive.
Ockels says Collin County near Ft. Worth spent 3-million dollars in 3 years to have county employees clean up garbage illegally dumped.
"Don't litter. There are a lot of alternatives. A lot of people like to come here because they know we recycle, we separate the metal, we separate the wood, anything that has value we want to do something with it rather than go to the landfill," said Dennis Hobbs.
