West Hartford, CT Trash & Recycling: Illegal Dumping (2026)

Chapter 115, Litter and Community Appearance Standards, gives West Hartford two overlapping bans that together cover illegal dumping. Section 115-2 makes it unlawful to throw or deposit litter, defined broadly to include garbage, refuse and rubbish, on the exterior of business property or on any street, sidewalk or other public place, unless it goes into a public receptacle or an official Town dump. Section 115-19 closes the private-property gap: no one may throw or deposit litter on any open or vacant private lot, whether or not they own it, so dumping construction debris or household waste on an empty parcel is banned even though it is not a public place.

Related sections reach the same conduct in other settings: § 115-17 bars littering occupied private property, § 115-8 covers Town parks, § 115-9 covers ponds, streams and other bodies of water, and § 115-7 targets vehicles and trucks that spill or track litter onto Town streets. Enforcement of the whole chapter runs through § 115-30, which puts the Town Manager or a designee in charge, and § 115-31, the penalty section: a violation is punished by a fine under § 1-8 of the Code of Ordinances or by any penalty stated specifically in Chapter 115, each day the violation continues counts as a separate offense, and the Town can still pursue enforced abatement of the dumped material on top of any fine. A person cited under Chapter 115 can appeal the citation under § 1-10 of the Code of Ordinances.