Illegal dumping on streets like Cadillac Drive leaves televisions, refrigerators, mattresses and household debris scattered within plain view of city cameras. A 14-person blight-reduction crew conducts frequent cleanups, with maintenance worker Javier Valencia loading junk onto his truck four days a week and photographing before-and-after conditions for reporting residents. Trucks often fill two to three times daily; some hotspots are re-dumped by the following day. The city has added measures such as dumpster days and a free junk-pickup program covering many household items, yet removal demands and repeat dumping continue to strain resources and operations.
On a short stretch of Cadillac Drive a few hundred feet in plain view of the cameras set up by San Jose to deter illegal dumping TVs, refrigerators, flooring, a dishwasher, shopping carts and an assortment of debris litter the street on a recent morning. It's one of the city's worst hotspots for discarded trash. Four days a week, maintenance worker Javier Valencia loads up the junk onto his truck and cleans up at each stop along his route.
But the stark reality is that at some locations around the city, like Cadillac Drive, illegal dumping happens so regularly that by the next day, there's often a new batch of discarded items on the same street. All this despite the concerted efforts by San Jose to crack down on blight and offer more resources like dumpster days and free junk pickup that includes a long list of garage and household goods like mattresses, furniture and tires.
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