Illegal dumping has plagued Oakland for years. And the scale of the problem is hard to overstate: the city received over 25,000 calls for service last year reporting illegal dumping, and city crews removed at least 15 million pounds of trash. That’s a little lower than 2024, when the city collected roughly 18 million pounds of illegally dumped trash.
As part of a multi-pronged strategy to deal with this problem, Mayor Barbara Lee, like past mayors and other current and former city officials, has repeatedly promised to hold illegal dumpers to account with stiff financial penalties and even criminal charges.
But measures meant to deter and punish illegal dumpers aren’t working, according to city data…