Medford, MA Trash & Recycling: Illegal Dumping (2026)

Section 38-33, 'Waste material; dumping,' sits in Article II, Nuisances, of Chapter 38, Environment, and dates to the 1974 Revised Ordinances, chapter 14, section 7. It layers four separate prohibitions: no depositing animal or vegetable material, or other material, that becomes a breeding place for rodents, flies or vermin, in any dump, public or private; no depositing material the board of health has deemed obnoxious by reason of odor, dust or putrefaction; no using any area as a dumping site for rubbish, trash or refuse unless that area is approved under M.G.L.A. c.

111, Sections 150A and 150A½, the state's solid waste disposal facility statutes; and no using a registered motor vehicle to carry material dumped in violation of the section. The section builds in its own evidentiary shortcut for enforcement: registry of motor vehicles records showing who owns a registered vehicle used to haul illegally dumped material count as prima facie evidence of the identity of the violator, so the city does not need an eyewitness to the actual dumping to build a case against a vehicle's registered owner.

The printed State Law references also point to M.G.L.A. c. 270, Section 16 for dumping rubbish near highways and M.G.L.A. c. 272, Section 60 for refusal to remove rubbish, both separate state offenses that can run alongside the city's own ordinance.