Brookhaven, NY Trash & Recycling: Illegal Dumping (2026)

Section 45-4K, most recently amended in 2024, bars any person, agent or employee from suffering or permitting garbage, hazardous waste, liquid waste, litter, rubbish, solid waste, construction or demolition debris, or any other organic or inorganic material transported in a dump truck or other vehicle to be dumped, deposited or disposed of in or upon any street, lot, park, public place, Town dumpster or other area, publicly or privately owned. The only exception is disposal at a public or private disposal facility permitted and licensed by the Town, done in accordance with that facility's rules.

Separate subsections extend the same dumping ban specifically to the Pine Barrens Compatible Growth Area and Core Preservation Area (§ 45-4K(2)), to designated wetlands defined in Chapter 81 (§ 45-4K(3)), to public recycling receptacles used for anything other than their designated material (§ 45-4K(4)), and to residential or commercial waste dumped in a public receptacle (§ 45-4K(5)). The Commissioner of the Department of Recycling and Sustainable Materials Management enforces the chapter and may enter private property at reasonable times to investigate under § 45-3. Section 45-4 also authorizes the Town to abate littered conditions on private property after a 10-day notice and to lien the cost against the land, but the dumping ban itself in Subsection K is a standalone criminal prohibition, not a notice-and-abatement provision.