No Commercial Dumping

After new signs were installed to remind residents that commercial waste cannot be dumped at the North Sea Transfer Station, rumors spread that Southampton Town had quietly adopted a stricter policy for the facility.

“The Town of Southampton has just changed the landscape for all contractors,” a Facebook user posted. “No more commercial tipping at the dump? Now you’re going to see debris all over the roads. Illegally dumped. There are already piles of construction trash on the road by the dump.”

Town Director of Municipal Works Christine Fetten quickly sought to quiet that buzz. It’s been a long-standing law since the 1990s that the town does not handle commercial waste, she said, and if there is piled-up construction debris on side roads, it’s nothing new, and something the town continues to fight.

“We recently put up signs at the North Sea Transfer Station because we were getting contractors and unmarked cars with obvious signs of being commercial businesses coming in and dumping,” Fetten said. “We’ve been having nice conversations with those people, telling them we can’t take business material. We’re residential only and we always have been.”

The prohibition against commercial waste includes private household carters as well as businesses using the transfer station to dump debris from construction jobs.

The town continues to accept construction and demolition debris generated by and hauled to the recycling center by private homeowners.

desiree@indyeastend.com