There's a problem piling up in neighborhoods around Pasco County: Donation bins meant to recycle slightly used items now surrounded with trash.
"Every time I turn around people are just dumping their stuff everywhere,” Wesley Chapel resident Bill Kruger said. "I'm like everybody else. We're getting fed up with it, you know?"
"It's supposed to be used for clothing and shoes and, as you can see, we have one, two, three, four, five, six televisions sitting around here," County Commissioner Mike Moore said.
We're not talking about working television sets here, and not the coffee machine, water heater and dishwasher don't work either. The three couches surrounding one donation bin now wreak of mildew, and Mike Moore says this is an all too familiar scene.
"It is frustrating to see," said Moore. "We do a lot to eliminate blight from our communities, and this is supposed to be a collection area for the less fortunate and unfortunately people are turning it into a landfill."
Halting the illegal dumping is the number one goal. Cleanup of sites like the one on State Road 56 and Point Pleasant Boulevard have already cost the county thousands.
Moore also says the businesses and nonprofits that have set up the bins have a responsibility to maintain the site, too.
"If they don't keep up with this we have to figure out if we can site them in some way," said Moore, who believes most donation organizations do look after their bins.
We decided to call the phone number on the side of the bin to find out why no one has been by to clean the site, however the number was no longer in service. While commissioners consider penalties for both parties as well as how to track donation bins. People like Kruger have their own message.
