Leon County, FL Trash & Recycling: Illegal Dumping (2026)

Sec. 18-176, within the Solid Waste article of Chapter 18, makes it unlawful for any person to dump, leave or bury solid waste on public or private property without the property owner's written consent; to cause or permit solid waste to accumulate on property he owns or controls in quantities that constitute a nuisance; or to fail to deliver solid waste to the county's solid waste disposal system within a reasonable time. Any of the three is punished under the countywide general penalty in Sec.

1-9: a person convicted of violating this Code faces a fine up to $500, imprisonment in the county jail up to 60 days, or both, and where the violation is continuous, each day it continues counts as a separate offense. Sec. 1-9 also lets the county pursue equitable or injunctive relief on top of the fine, and a criminal penalty does not stop the county from separately suspending or revoking a license, permit or franchise tied to the violation. Sec. 18-176 sits in Division 3 of the Solid Waste article, the same division that sets the county's annual disposal service charge and requires improved property in the service area to use the county's collection system; the dumping offense backstops that system by criminalizing waste that bypasses it entirely, whether left on a neighbor's lot, a roadside, or piled up on the violator's own property until it becomes a nuisance.