Rob Lush pulls into an alleyway between the 2700 block of West Market and Main in the Portland neighborhood, flicks on his yellow and white strobe lights, parks the white truck labeled Louisville Metro at one end of the alley and makes his way to the other. On the way he points out what’s been illegally dumped and what’s allowed to stay. Lush, 28, has been working for Louisville Metro for about two years. After getting out of the military, the Portland native and his wife moved back to Kentucky, where he was able to land a job as a trash enforcement officer. Lush motions to a mound of furniture, linoleum and insulation. “It looks like they’re remodeling that house. This block just had junk collection, so that would be a violation: early setout.”
Lush points out another pile across from the furniture. “This pile here, this is stuff that we just impounded (someone’s vehicle) for.” A little further down the alley, a man with long hair and a graying beard rummages through trash. “You get that a lot,” Lush says.
“Anytime we catch somebody illegally dumping on camera, we run their license plate on a system that tells us who owns the vehicle, where they live. At that point we can issue a citation. It’s $500 each time you’re seen on camera dumping. Then there’s a $250 cleanup charge. We have 19 surveillance cameras throughout the county, and we set those up in hot-spots.” This alley is apparently a hot-spot. Lush explains that the next step is to notify LMPD, not for record-keeping’s sake, but rather for his own safety. “We knock on the door, issue the citation, and it’s at that point that we impound the vehicle.” Even if the perpetrator can pay the fine that day, their vehicle is impounded for at least 72 hours. The city has impounded three different vehicles belonging to people who illegally dumped something in this one alley.
After the bearded man walks off, Lush heads over to the garbage he’d been inspecting. “We’ll look through this pile here, just to see if we can find anything,” he says. “Even though we have the cameras here, if we can find some mail with their name on it, it’s just more evidence to say, ‘You did this.’” Lush slips on his blue rubber gloves and starts hunting for clues within the pile, which consists of a mattress, a rotted-out dresser and boxes filled with junk. “When it comes to boxes with shipping labels, it’s kinda hard to get anything from that. They could just say that they set it out for recycling, and somebody else took the boxes.” Lush pulls papers from the tipped-over dresser, some of them mail. Pieces for Matthew at Lindell Avenue, Matthew at Indian Legends Drive. Another piece for Toni at West Main. Lush pulls out a small red box with a shipping label: Toni at Indian Legends Drive. A match? “Maybe. They could be a couple, or it could be that this was in a garage of a rental property for a while, and somebody came through and cleaned it out. I’ve gotten that before.” He continues: “So I’ll take pictures of everything here, pictures of the mail. I’ll run their information, and usually send citations to each address. It’s a vacant property, so they probably assume it’s a victimless thing. But then the city has to do it. And that’s taxpayer money.”
Lush explains that, when dumping, people are usually trying to get in and get out quickly, which means they don’t stray far from home. “They know that the city sometimes maintains vacant properties, so they’ll dump there. They try to find the most overgrown alley, something with a privacy fence. You know, we have these cameras, but people are just looking to see if anyone else is watching. They don’t see the cameras.”
Lush often gets calls about yard waste, branches cut from trees, sometimes cut-down trees themselves, which can rarely be traced back to the dumper. More than once Lush has had to search through a pile in which he found used syringes. “That’s really disappointing to see,” he says. “Kids are kids, you know, and sometimes they will dig through this stuff. So to see that sort if thing is upsetting.”
“A lot of the times, I can see that these guys don’t know that they can bring three household items for free to our location on Meriwether. So before we cite, a lot of the time we’ll try and educate people first.”
Cover photo courtesy of Louisville Public Works Dept. of Solid Waste
