Clay County, MO Trash & Recycling: Illegal Dumping (2026)

21, treats on-site litter and outside dumping as two separate offenses. Subsection (B) requires anyone generating garbage, litter, refuse, rubbish, trash, or waste liquid inside a park or recreation area to use the receptacles the county provides rather than leaving it on the ground. Subsection (C) goes further and bars bringing in household or commercial garbage, litter, debris, refuse, rubbish, trash, or yard waste from off-site for disposal or dumping anywhere in the park system unless the parks director gives written consent first. Subsection (D) adds a companion duty: anyone occupying a picnic, camp, or shelter site must keep the area free of trash during their stay and haul out all personal property and equipment afterward, leaving the site as it was found.

21(E), separately makes it a crime to dump a dead animal's carcass into any well, spring, creek, or pond, or onto any park road, boat ramp, parking lot, or trash receptacle within the park system. All five subsections trace to Ord. GO-84-42 from April 7, 1984, and were last amended by Ord. No. 2024-ORD-21 on August 15, 2024. This dumping ban applies only within land owned or managed by the Clay County department of parks, recreation, and historic sites; the county's Municode export contains no general countywide illegal-dumping ordinance covering private or roadside property in the unincorporated area outside the park system.