Salem, OR Trash & Recycling: Illegal Dumping (2026)

Sec. 220(a) bars discarding, scattering, dumping, or depositing any amount of solid waste into a canal, ditch, stream, waterway, creek, river or other body of water, or onto any public place or other publicly-owned property, unless it goes into a receptacle set up to hold it. Subsection (b) extends the ban to private property: dumping on someone else's land is illegal unless the property owner consents and the disposal is otherwise lawful under federal, state, and local rules, so even leaving waste on a vacant lot with the owner's permission still has to meet every other applicable waste law.

The prohibition covers any amount, so there's no minimum-quantity exception; a single bag left along a ditch bank or in a City park violates the section as much as a truckload does. Sec. 220(c) gives the court an alternative to a straight fine: anyone sentenced to pay a fine under the section can instead work off the debt clearing solid waste from the lands and waters the section describes, with the labor credited at a rate consistent with Oregon's minimum wage as set by the Bureau of Labor and Industries.

Illegal dumping is treated more seriously than most Chapter 47 offenses; unlike the receptacle-preparation infractions in Sec. 165, a violation of Sec. 220 is classified as a misdemeanor rather than an infraction.