Camden County, NJ Trash & Recycling: Illegal Dumping (2026)

Article 4, Section 14 of the Camden County Park Regulations covers rubbish and refuse across the entire Camden County Park System. Subsection (A) prohibits throwing or discharging into a park's waters, or into any tributary, storm sewer or drain feeding those waters, any substance that could foul or pollute them, reaching stormwater as well as direct dumping into a lake or river inside a county park. Subsection (B) is broader: it bars throwing, depositing or leaving litter or recyclable material anywhere in the park system except in the receptacles the county provides for that purpose, and it separately bans dumping or discarding any material anywhere in the system without written authorization from the Camden County Board of County Commissioners (the Regulations still use the pre-2021 name, Board of Chosen Freeholders).

That written-authorization requirement means even routine disposal, such as a contractor clearing debris from a park worksite, needs sign-off from the Board rather than staff discretion. The rule sits within the same Article 4 prohibited-uses chapter enforced by the Camden County Park System and local police under Article 6, and it applies to every park and park land the county holds, from Cooper River Park to the smaller neighborhood parks, not just the larger regional facilities. The county Department of Health separately regulates sanitary conditions and recreational bathing water quality, but dumping and litter inside park boundaries specifically falls under this Article 4 rule.