Wellington, FL Trash & Recycling: Illegal Dumping (2026)

Section 17-1, in Article I of Chapter 17, Solid Waste, prohibits depositing, releasing, throwing, or dumping filth, dirt, garbage, trash, refuse, or other deleterious material into or onto public property in Wellington, expressly naming lakes, canals, and other water bodies and the rights-of-way adjacent or contiguous to them. The prohibition is not limited to designated dump sites; it reaches any public property within the Village, which includes park land, road rights-of-way, and Village-owned drainage canals that also serve as flood control for the equestrian community's low-lying pastures.

Section 17-23, the chapter's companion littering provision, extends the same logic to any location, public or private, that is not a receptacle intended for the waste, and bars leaving such material anywhere except on the property that generated it. Section 17-22 separately prohibits unauthorized accumulations of solid waste, trash, bulk trash, vegetative waste, or construction and demolition debris on any premises, though it carves out backyard composting and stable or vegetative waste that does not create odor or attract vermin and stays screened from public view.

Enforcement of Chapter 17 as a whole runs through the Supplemental Code Compliance Procedures adopted under Chapter 162, Part II, Florida Statutes, and set out in Chapter 2 of the Code, and Section 17-24 specifies that each day a prohibited dumping act continues is treated as a separate offense, so a canal-side dumping violation left uncorrected keeps accruing new violations rather than counting as one.