New Hanover County, NC Trash & Recycling: Illegal Dumping (2026)

Sec. 44-53 prohibits placing, discarding, throwing, dropping, dumping or depositing, or causing someone else to do the same, any litter, trash or refuse in three settings: on a public street or sidewalk, or on property owned or operated by the county or any other public property, outside a properly designated receptacle; on land belonging to someone else without the owner's, occupant's or lessee's consent; or into any stream or body of water. That prohibition sits alongside Sec. 44-52's separate accumulation rules, which make general contractors responsible for keeping construction and demolition sites free of loose debris and scrap materials, require commercial establishments to containerize refuse around loading and unloading areas to stop wind-driven litter, and put the burden on whoever controls a parking lot to keep it litter-free and collect trash deposited there.

Enforcement runs through Sec. 44-58, administered by the county manager or a designee under Sec. 00 or imprisonment not exceeding 30 days, with each day the violation continues charged as a separate offense. 00 per ton for illegally disposed solid waste can be recovered as a debt if it goes unpaid 30 days after notice. S. 153A-123 supplies any additional remedy the chapter does not itself spell out.