HENRIETTA TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Earlier this week on Tuesday afternoon, Henrietta Township resident Jacob Markiewicz saw two people pull off to the side of Jordan Road. Thinking they needed help, he started to walk over to them only to find them dumping trash.
“I kind of said, ‘Hey, excuse me,’” he said. “I was just kind of shocked to see like, no, they’re not really dumping trash are they? And, it turns out, they were, and as soon as they saw me coming their way, they got in the car and drove off.”
The two suspects were driving a darkly colored late 1980s or early 1990s Ford pickup truck.
They dumped several items including water bottles, jeans, a piece of an old shopping cart and general trash.
“You do see some trash up and down the road every now and again,” Markiewicz said. “People sometimes are throwing out their beer bottles or pop bottles and things of that nature. But, this is the first time I’ve actually witnessed somebody unloading multiple things off the back of their truck.”
Markiewicz contacted authorities, and within an hour, the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office responded to the call. Sheriff Gary Schuette says if you’re caught illegally dumping the fine could be as much as $500, or if there’s a state civil infraction depending on the amount of debris, it could land you in jail for 90 days.
If the dump is a cubic yard to three cubic yards, the fine is $1,500. If it’s more than three cubic yards, it’s a $2,500 civil infraction.
“You do have instances like this where people for one reason or another, either they can’t afford it, or they’re lazy, and they just dump it off onto the side of the road for others to take care of,” Schuette said.
Schuette says to think twice before illegally dumping something.
“If they do it, there’s a lot of cameras out there,” Schuette said. “And, a lot of times we are able to find people based upon the camera information that we have. Social media is a huge tool that we use, and you will likely get caught on somebody’s ring camera. And if you do, we will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”
The waste has been taken care of on Jordan Road. Schuette says he hasn’t seen any increases in trash dumping throughout the county, and the rubbish is usually removed within a few days.
Markiewicz says he plans on having a photograph of the trash in a silent auction at the Art Walk inside the Jackson County Tower Building on July 31 with the proceeds from that photo going towards local trash cleanup efforts.
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