Illegal waste costs Bavarian municipalities tens of thousands

Bavarian municipalities are spending tens of thousands of euros each year clearing illegally dumped waste, while those responsible are rarely identified, BR reported on Wednesday.

Hermann Zeller, who handles illegal waste disposal for the municipal services in Ingolstadt, said the problem was worsening “from week to week.” At a recycling collection point, he found containers overflowing after the weekend with items that did not belong there, including car tyres and old suitcases.

In Ingolstadt, the amount of illegally dumped waste collected rose from 65 tonnes in 2022 to 194 tonnes in 2025. Municipalities across Bavaria, as well as the Bavarian State Forests, are increasingly dealing with illegal waste piles along forest edges and at commuter car parks. Tax money generally pays for the clean-up, while those responsible remain unidentified in most cases.

In the town of Neutraubling, new waste piles appear every few weeks in residential areas, containing scrap metal, household rubbish and food waste. The waste disposal company responsible has stopped taking the piles away. The town is trying at least to keep access clear for the fire brigade. During the first half of 2026, it spent 10,000 euros and about 150 working hours dealing with illegally dumped waste, despite the availability of numerous free disposal services.

Similar scenes have been reported in Regensburg, where city councillor Michael Lehner encountered angry residents at a waste hotspot. They said people were leaving sofas and refrigerators there. Lehner is calling for higher fines and surveillance cameras at such hotspots, saying cameras were needed to identify those responsible. Privacy rules, however, mean that installing them is not straightforward, and many municipalities are reluctant to overcome that hurdle.

Some municipalities have begun hiring private investigators to monitor hotspots and catch offenders in the act. Lehner spent two nights observing one location with a reporting team from BR’s programme Kontrovers – Die Story.

“Now we’re sitting here,” Lehner said as he waited in a concealed vehicle on the first night. Vehicles repeatedly passed by, but nobody unloaded rubbish. He stayed until morning without catching anyone. The second attempt produced the same result.

Lehner concluded that such surveillance work was time-consuming and its success uncertain. Regensburg is now examining whether it can install a camera at the hotspot in compliance with privacy rules.

In Ingolstadt, camera surveillance has not yet been approved. During one of his regular rounds, Zeller found more illegally dumped carpets near the Danube. He will never find out who left them there. The city recorded about 40 enforced fines for around 194 tonnes of illegally dumped waste.