After spotting motion on a security camera, a resident checked the footage and witnessed something infuriating: A neighbor, lugging an overflowing bag of garbage, hurled the bag directly into the property's pond and walked away.
"I'm soooo mad at this!!!!" OP wrote after posting the footage on the subreddit r/infuriatingasf***. "We not only have valet trash service that takes the trash from your door, we live across the street from the large dump!!! Now the animals in the lake have to suffer and we all have to smell more trash!!"
Fellow commenters were similarly outraged.
"You've got video evidence of repeated offenses. Seems like a quick way to get them fined for illegal dumping," one person suggested.
"Seriously, please report this to the authorities," another commented. "This is detrimental to wildlife and a huge hazard to people's health as well. Contact your local authorities and show them this."
Illegal dumping is when someone disposes of waste at an unlawful location, which ranges from people's front yards to protected wildlife refuges. Unfortunately, it's common.
Like OP pointed out, illegal dumping isn't just unsightly — after all, coming across garbage is an effective way to ruin time spent in nature — but it's also dangerous.
One study, published in Land Use Policy, found that illegal landfills are "an increasing global problem;" they "contaminate soils, pollute water, change vegetation, [disrupt] ecosystem functionality, and pose land degradation," per ScienceDirect.
The study also found that these areas "can disturb the species composition of native vegetation and create space for synanthropic as well as invasive plant species. These species may then spread from the [dump sites] and affect the species composition of the natural ecosystems."
This trickles up the food chain, depriving animals and pollinators of native food sources. Additionally, wildlife often accidentally ingest garbage, which causes them to starve to death with stomachs artificially stuffed with trash.
Like OP did, it's often critical to report any illegal dumping you witness in your community or at work, because it does make a difference.
For example, a team of crew members onboard a large tanker blew the whistle on their leadership, who had instructed them to illegally dump barrels of toxic oil sludge into the ocean. Another company was fined over $2 million after illegally dumping sewage into a river.
Meanwhile, one commenter on the original post wondered whether the person who tossed the trash into the water was a kid — like the teenagers caught brazenly dumping trash into Florida waters — who might have been unaware of the impact of their actions.
"Find the parents," another person wrote, highlighting the importance of education around critical climate issues even when tasked with undesired chores.
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