Troy cracks down on trash dumping with new surveillance cameras

TROY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — Smile! You might be caught on camera the next time you think of dumping your trash in Troy. The Department of Public Works and General Services decided surveillance was the way to go after getting more than a thousand illegal dumping and bulk trash violations in six months.

“There’s times where we’re in the same alleyway the same day to collect an area that we’ve already collected, so it’s frustrating to see,” explains Streets and Sanitation Supervisor Tom Abbott.

Old mattresses, tires, couches and speakers — he says his litter patrol has even found people brought their home trash from Watervliet and Albany to dump on the side of the road in Troy.

“I hate to think that the areas around here think that Troy is just a garbage can. That would be pretty nasty to think that way,” says Larry Gostkowski who lives near one of the “hot-spot” alleys.

“We were on these back alleys three, sometimes four times a week,” Abbott says to NEWS10’s Mikhaela Singleton. “We needed to make a change and get on top of it and that’s what we did.”

Abbott says the city bought ten mobile surveillance cameras at the beginning of January to catch litterbugs in the act.

“This camera in particular sends me a live feed which is basically if something is occurring presently, or it takes a little video clips of things that are going on in that alley,” he says while demonstrating an app that sends patrol officers text alerts when the cameras detect movement.

They can also be placed in different parts of the city any time of the day. Abbott says they’ve both fined people on the spot and watched dumpers get deterred.

“We’ve actually witnessed people pulling up, noticing the camera, sit there for a few seconds and then just kind of mosey on down the road, and that’s what we want. We don’t want the stuff dumped in city of Troy anymore,” he says.

And neighbors are taking notice. Gostkowski says the alley near his home has already seen a dramatic improvement in limiting trash dumping.

“It’s a great city and I hate to see it kinda looking the way that it does. I see it every day, and I’m glad that the city is doing something about trying to clean all that up,” he says.

The camera program is doing so well, Troy city management already plans to buy ten more cameras so they can monitor the “hot-spot alleys” where people are known to sneak their trash.