AZ Governor signs new law | Class 6 felony for dumping trash

You’ve been camping all week in your favorite spot. It’s been a beautiful weekend with friends and family barbequing, exploring, and having a good time. The weekend is now coming to a close and it’s time to pack up camp and head home. The journey home is long but the nearest services are just a stone’s throw away. The last thing to pack is the trash. You pick it up and you nearly eat flies, it smells rancid, and it’s leaking trash juice everywhere. You look around oh, nobody’s looking, and you decide to ditch it behind the nearest tree.

All the while, you have no idea the consequences that are looming in the distance. Maybe somebody saw you. Maybe there’s a forest ranger down the road. You know it was wrong, but you drive away anyways.

You get home, and you hear on the news, “the governor just passed a new law making dumping trash a felony,”

Pack out your garbage or face the consequences

Leaving your garbage behind is the most selfish thing you can do.

All people pay the consequence when garbage is left behind. It is used as an excuse during management planning and contributes to the closure of popular camping and recreation areas.

It makes it difficult to keep areas open for the public to use when garbage is left behind. Despite the fact that we have local groups removing tons of garbage every year, and advocacy groups fighting to keep areas open, we are still losing dispersed camping opportunities and motorized access.

The garbage isn’t helping, and we are tired of packing other people’s trash out. We are tired of defending our right to access against these terrible actions.

In an ideal scenario, dumping any trash would be a felony. But under ARS 13-1603 it’s not a felony unless the amount of trash exceeds 300 pounds. I was just kidding. I got your attention though, didn’t I? Yes, you got clickbaited, and I hope this message reaches those who need to hear it the most.