Dumpsters are dangerous; they are lethal weapons! Those big steal waste disposal canisters that you see behind businesses can be used not only to dispose of garbage but to hurt and harm people.

Something needs to be done to regulate dumpsters. Generally dumpsters do not have latches or locks so anyone can gain access to them. This means that babies can be dumped into dumpsters. Even people can be hauled off in dumpsters. In fact dumpsters have been used in many crimes including arson, identity theft, disposal of murder weapons, disposal of live animals, disposal of infants, and disposal of victims of rape and murder.

Recently a 37 year old man in Thunder Bay, Ontario fell asleep inside a dumpster. He was dumped into a garbage truck, compacted into a heap of refuse, dumped in a landfill and almost torn apart by a bulldozer. In San Jose a 39 year old woman, Gloria Borrilla, was murdered and her naked body thrown in a dumpster, then heaved into a north San Jose landfill along with tons of garbage.

We need to pass laws to regulate dumpsters before these type of gruesome crimes spread to our area. Every dumpster should have a latch and padlock so that unauthorized people can not just drive by and unload anything they want into a dumpster.

Also the delivery of dumpsters needs to be regulated. Currently anyone can order a dumpster from local waste service companies and have these delivered without even having to sign a contract. All that is required is giving a credit card number.

If this practice keeps up, sooner or later someone is going to use a dumpster to murder a child or dispose of a body. In fact this gruesome scenario has already happened in other places. What better way to get rid of a body than to chop it up, put it in black plastic bags, and deposit these in a wide open dumpster, say behind a hospital or butcher shop where no one would notice. This very crime happened to a Swedish woman investigated by the late Ken Shaw. Her body was cut in half, tied in a trash bag and thrown in a dumpster.

Unless we adopt strict laws and better regulate dumpsters, requiring that they have locks and latches, dumpster misuse and abuse is a crime waiting to happen. In fact, I have already been the victim of dumpster abuse when some very valuable property was removed from my home and destroyed.

If private citizens can be hurt and harmed by abuse of waste service providers, then it is time cities and states begin to regulate dumpsters. In a time where babies are being tossed into the garbage, children abducted and people being treated like trash, it is insane for society not to mandate putting locks and latches on every dumpster! In fact, all USERS, not just haulers, of dumpsters should be required to have a license.

Sincerely,
Terry Lynch
Date: 15 August, 2002

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