Los Angeles is being likened to a Third World dumping ground as towering piles of illegally discarded waste spread across city streets. Frustrated residents say City Hall has allowed the sanitation crisis to deteriorate unchecked.
Incoming Mayor Nithya Raman is now under pressure to clean up the city after voting last year to raise residential trash collection fees by 54%.
City sanitation records obtained by the California Post after a four-month battle for access show that crews removed an astonishing 44.2 million pounds of illegally dumped garbage over just 16 months. That figure covers only the waste workers were able to collect.
The problem was on full display when a woman casually threw an old tire rim into a South Los Angeles alley while the California Post was speaking with a community activist about the neighborhood’s growing trash problem.
“Not even India shocked me like LA,” said Juan Naula, a volunteer who has spent the past two years helping clean up the city’s streets.
“My city is clean, and we are a Third World country,” he added, referring to his hometown in Ecuador.
Naula moved to Los Angeles from Virginia in 2024. Appalled by the heaps of abandoned furniture, mattresses and household debris, he founded Clean LA With Me.
The group says it has since brought together more than 800 volunteers, cleaned over 200 neighborhoods and removed more than 50,000 pounds of trash.
While volunteers are spending their own money to confront the problem, taxpayers are also absorbing a massive cleanup bill.
According to city records, crews collected 27.3 million pounds of illegally dumped garbage in 2025 and another 16.9 million pounds through April 2026.
The cost of removing the waste reached $42 million in 2025, with expenses continuing to rise this year.
Raman, who takes office in December, voted in 2025 to approve an initial 54% increase in garbage collection fees. Further increases are scheduled through 2029.
Monthly trash bills for single-family homes have already climbed nearly 64%, from $36.32 to $59.53. The monthly charge is projected to reach $65.93 by 2029.
Naula says the cost of legally disposing of unwanted items, in addition to regular trash bills, may be contributing to the illegal-dumping epidemic.
“People don’t want to pay $115 to go and dump the trash,” he said.
He has experienced those costs himself, sometimes paying disposal fees two or three times a week from his own pocket to remove waste collected by volunteers.
Even as residents pay more for sanitation services, staffing shortages have weakened the city’s ability to pursue illegal dumpers.
Records show that investigations into illegal dumping largely stalled in July 2024, leaving 350 cases backlogged by May 2025.
The crisis is especially severe in working-class South Los Angeles. Sanitation crews removed 5.5 million pounds of illegally dumped waste from a single council district there in 2025.
Two additional districts covering parts of South LA and Downtown accounted for another 8.8 million pounds.
Combined, the three districts were responsible for more than half of all illegally dumped garbage collected across the city that year.
“The problem of illegal street garbage dumping is widespread and growing in South L.A.,” longtime community activist Earl Ofari Hutchinson, president of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable, told the California Post.
Hutchinson said City Hall often allows piles of trash to remain for days or even weeks, despite repeated complaints from residents.
He believes some illegal dumpers intentionally target South LA because they expect little risk of being caught.
“A lot of it is done by those outside the area who recognize that there is no real likelihood of a penalty or prosecution if caught dumping in South L.A.,” he said.
Residents have also faced difficulties persuading the city to remove garbage that has already accumulated.
Naula said increasingly frustrated residents are turning to his organization after repeatedly trying to obtain help through the city’s 311 service.
Hutchinson described a similar experience. He told the California Post that his initial requests for garbage removal were rejected because sanitation crews “would not collect loose trash unless it was stuffed into tied bags.”
“So we began buying the bags ourselves,” he said.
The illegal-dumping crisis extends beyond the boundaries of Los Angeles.
Los Angeles County Public Works said it removed more than 49 million pounds of illegally dumped waste in 2025, a 14% increase from the previous year.
County spending on cleanup nearly tripled over four years, rising from $2.3 million in fiscal year 2019-20 to $6.8 million in 2023-24.
The county recorded 14,106 reports of illegal dumping in 2025.
“Enforcement takes time,” County Public Works told the California Post.
“When evidence identifies haulers or other people responsible for dumping, our agencies pursue those leads,” officials added.
Naula and Hutchinson both said abandoned garbage can trigger a domino effect: once one pile appears, more waste follows as people conclude they can dump without consequences.
“When people see trash dumped on the street, they think it’s OK to dump theirs there too,” Naula said.
Hutchinson said rising cleanup costs will accomplish little unless the city responds more quickly and strengthens enforcement.
“Simply putting up billboards imploring residents to call and report garbage dumping is meaningless,” he said.
He urged Raman to declare an illegal-dumping emergency in South LA, assign dedicated cleanup crews and expand enforcement efforts.
Raman’s office was contacted for comment.
Naula is meanwhile hoping to raise enough money to hire additional workers as more residents seek help from his organization.
Still, he stressed that City Hall cannot resolve the crisis by itself.
“It’s not just the government, OK? Everybody. Also, the people have to do their part,” he said.