Southfield, MI Trash & Recycling: Illegal Dumping (2026)

Southfield City Code § 9.133, Litter; prohibition; construction of terms; removal of debris from highways, bans dumping without consent across an unusually wide sweep of locations. It is unlawful for a person knowingly, without the consent of the public authority having supervision of public property or the owner of private property, to dump, deposit, place, throw, or leave, or cause or permit the dumping, depositing, placing, throwing, or leaving of, litter on public or private property or water other than property designated and set aside for such purposes.

The code spells out exactly what public or private property or water reaches: road and highway rights-of-way, any body of water or watercourse and its shore or beach, ice above the water, parks, playgrounds, buildings, conservation or recreation areas, and residential, farm or timber land. The same section separately requires drivers who remove a vehicle wrecked or damaged in a highway accident to clear away all glass and other injurious debris the accident left behind. Section 9.133 sets no dollar penalty of its own, so a violation is punished under the general Code penalty in § 1.15: a fine of up to $500, imprisonment of up to 90 days, or both, with each day of an unremoved dump a separate offense.

A related, more specific section, § 9.148, addresses litter thrown or falling into a vehicle's path and carries its own penalty of up to $400 and 90 days in jail, plus a rebuttable presumption that a vehicle's registered owner was the driver responsible. Both sections trace to the mid-1980s: § 9.133 to Ord. No. 1215 in 1986, § 9.148 to Ord. No. 1216 the same year.