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

Escambia County's litter control ordinance (Code § 42-154) bars anyone from throwing, discarding, placing, dropping or depositing litter "in any manner or amount" on public or private property, a highway, street, right-of-way or body of water, except in areas and containers set up for that purpose. Section 42-154(b) separately makes the operator of a vehicle liable whenever litter is ejected or blows off during travel, and § 42-154(c) bars dumping anything but litter into a receptacle placed for public use. Under § 42-154(d), the property owner is on the hook for material that sits on the land for 48 hours or more, whether or not the owner put it there. "Litter" is defined at § 42-153 to include everything from bottles, cans and scrap metal to yard trash and construction debris, and enforcement falls to the county sheriff's department and county code enforcement officers.

A related prohibition in the solid waste chapter, § 82-14, separately bars using any property in the county to dispose of or treat solid waste without a county permit, covering dumping that rises to the level of an unpermitted landfill. Illegal-dumping complaints go through the same notice-and-abatement process as other litter violations: a certified-mail demand plus a ten-day posted placard, a right to a Board of County Commissioners hearing, and county abatement with a recorded lien if the dumper or owner does not clear the site (§ 42-164). This article is enforced in the unincorporated area only; Pensacola and Century handle dumping under their own codes.