Wilmington, NC Trash & Recycling: Illegal Dumping (2026)

Section 10-17 uses an unusually broad list of prohibited verbs, barring anyone from placing, discarding, throwing, dropping, dumping, causing to fall, depositing, or causing to be so treated any litter, trash, or refuse in two settings: any public street or sidewalk within the city or any property owned or operated by the city or other public property, except in a properly designated receptacle, and any privately owned, occupied, or leased property without the consent of that property's owner. The section then adds a distinct clause barring anyone from storing or leaving personal belongings unattended on city-owned or other public property.

Section 10-1 separately defines illegal dumping as the disposal of solid waste or refuse on a public street or sidewalk, city or other public property outside designated receptacles, or on privately owned or leased property without the owner's consent, a definition the city also uses to flag chronic violators for enforcement purposes. 00 civil penalty under Section 10-2(b), but Section 10-17 breaks that pattern: a violation is expressly made a misdemeanor, putting illegal dumping in the same criminal-penalty category as Section 7-5's park camping ban rather than the chapter's routine civil-fine track.