Bethel, CT Trash & Recycling: Illegal Dumping (2026)

Chapter 93, Solid Waste Transfer Station, adopted by the Board of Selectmen on 11-29-1983, governs Bethel's former sanitary landfill and transfer station site. Section 93-3 flatly bars any person, firm, corporation, business or partnership from depositing refuse, garbage or sludge at the site unless it originates or comes from within the Town of Bethel's corporate limits, closing off the site to trash hauled in from neighboring towns like Danbury or Brookfield. The rule is backed by the commercial and semicommercial hauler permitting scheme in § 93-4, which requires haulers to sign an affidavit of origin, under penalty of false statement, swearing that everything they bring to the transfer station comes from within Bethel, and to file their routes with the Director of Public Works.

Noncommercial users need their own annual permit sticker under § 93-5, obtained on proof of Bethel residence or taxpayer status. Anyone found violating Chapter 93, including the out-of-town dumping ban, is subject to a fine of $100 for each offense under § 93-9, and § 93-8 separately lets the Town refuse the violator access to the transfer station site altogether. The chapter's general reference also points to § 80-9, which bars anyone from removing or scavenging recyclables the Town has already collected.