This story aired in the May 18, 2026 episode of Crosscurrents.
Illegal dumping in Oakland is not an issue you can deny, if you spend enough time in the city you will be met again and again by sprawling, incomprehensible mountains of trash.
Last year, municipal crews in the city of Oakland collected over 7 million pounds of illegally dumped waste from city streets.
And that’s just what they cleared, the trash on the streets keeps piling up.
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Story Transcript:
VINCENT WILLIAMS: Oh, this better not be who I think it is, yo. Oh yeah they're going for it…
Sound of engine revving
REPORTER: I’m in West Oakland, in the passenger seat of a shiny, lifted Chevy Silverado tailing another pick-up truck -full of junk…
WILLIAMS: Eight, P as in Paul…
REPORTER: We’re speeding around a mountain of trash that swallows up the entire street corner at 26th & Peralta in West Oakland.
WILLIAMS: is the license plate number of this vehicle…
REPORTER: Vincent Williams is driving. He’s recording with a dash cam, repeating the license plate number of the truck in front of us out loud.
Vincent is at war with illegally dumped trash. He founded a non profit that helps communities clean up their streets…but by night he does recon to intercept illegal dumpers.
WILLIAMS: I'm wondering what it is they're doing. 'cause you literally can't stop there in the middle of the street. So what are you doing buddy?
REPORTER: When Vincent hops out, yelling with his flashlight on, the guys we’ve been tailing deny they are there to dump trash. They tell Vincent they are actually collecting trash and scan the pile pretending to look around before peeling off.
WILLIAMS: Oh, they're moving now. Where are you going?
REPORTER: Vincent is so fixated on this problem that he stays up all night, multiple times a week to do this unsanctioned surveillance… he’s kind of a maniac. But I understand it, this problem is personal for him.
WILLIAMS: I was born in Oakland, raised in Oakland. Um, I was homeless at eight years old in Oakland.
REPORTER: Growing up on the streets Vincent saw illegal dumping become an issue that, in many ways, disproportionately affected the unhoused. Encampments may be a convenient place to dump trash, but people living there try their best to keep the space clean. Vincent wants to protect their integrity .
WILLIAMS: So between the age of, of six months old and 15, hundreds of placements, juvenile hall, hundreds of times. And every single one of those times when I came into contact with some type of authority figure, I tried to tell them how I was being hurt by people…Um, but nobody ever listened and nobody ever acknowledged what was going on.
REPORTER: It's easy to see why take matters into his own hands. He was released from prison in 2019, after which he started doing cleanups on his own. By 2021 a community had grown around his work and it was registered as a non-profit. However, he’s always quick to clarify that he “hates the non-profit industrial complex.”
After the car we were tailing drives away we turn our attention to the unofficial dump we are parked in front of. The darkness is punctuated by roving lights – a new group of people with headlamps have appeared – this corner has much more activity at midnight than I would expect. They are looking through the pile, trying to find anything salvageable.
WILLIAMS: So, just household trash, carpeting. Damn. Those are some nice Jordans…
REPORTER: Vincent and I hop out and join the other folks looking through the trash pile. There’s all kinds of stuff in here.
WILLIAMS: Where's the other one at?...Damn, those are nice.
REPORTER: The pile has everything from household trash to construction materials. Near the Jordans we find some obituaries and family photos swimming on top of a layer of slime. This stuff gives us a clue that it's both individuals and unlicensed haulers dumping here.
Sound of local news reels
REPORTER: Vincent blames the trash collection company for the problem’s escalation.
WILLIAMS: The responsibility lies with Waste Management…nobody acknowledges that what they're doing is egregious
REPORTER: In 2015, Waste Management Incorporated, a Texas based company, took over Oakland’s sanitation contract. Then they increased the price of garbage services. Vincent says the reason for the fee hike was simple: waste-management’s greed. The industry doesn't have the best reputation… think the Sopranos – Tony was in waste management, or think about the indictment of former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, she was involved in a trash corruption scandal…Trash collection is famously sketchy.
WILLIAMS: It's very self-serving and it's happening on the backs of most people who are barely living check to check.
REPORTER: I found that, in Oakland, the cheapest residential trash service, with the smallest size bin is $55.41 a month. In Albany, just next door, also served by Waste Management it costs just $14.79 a month. A recent city audit confirmed that discrepancy.
Sound of Waste Management hold music
REPORTER: I tried to get an explanation for the difference in price from higher ups at Waste Management, but despite my calls and emails, no one would get back to me.
The City of Oakland Public Works department oversees the contract with Waste Management…(And) they were equally confused
KRISTIN HATHAWAY: Like everyone wants to know like what is causing illegal dumping? And I call that kind of the white whale question. Like we all wanna know what's causing illegal dumping.
REPORTER: I spoke with Kristin Hathaway, Public Work’s assistant program director. She couldn’t give me any clear answers on why the prices are so high. Or what waste management’s profit margins actually are.
Meanwhile more and more trash is piling up on the streets
WILLIAMS: So you see up there on that pole where there's that blue blinking light? There's a camera there, there's a camera right there across the street. There's a camera over here. And then if you look up right here…
REPORTER: At the recon site, Vincent points out a bouquet of surveillance devices on a streetlamp pole.
WILLIAMS: There's four cameras. One of them is the license plate reader… So when we talk about the dumping that's happening in this area and the lack of accountability that's taking place, this is always under surveillance.
REPORTER: Out of thousands of illegal dumping incidents reported in 2025, Oakland Public Works only issued around 270 citations.
When you're faced with a confusing problem, it makes sense to do the most basic thing possible to address it. In Vincent’s case, intercept the dumping, rally your neighbors, pick up the trash. What else can you do?
Sound of chatter and shovels scraping the ground
REPORTER: When I came to a cleanup it was raining – a group of eight volunteers with sky blue safety vests raked slop out of a storm gutter. I saw diapers and pads, roofing shingles–one volunteer speared an onion with their rake, another plucked a syringe out of a pile with pincers.
VOLUNTEER: This was the site that I, I, this was the first site that I cleaned up about three months ago. And look at it, you know, it was pristine when we were done cleaning it three months ago. And it's like, you know, it was probably dirty like a week later.
REPORTER: Sometimes Vincent's struggle seems pointless…but that doesn't concern him.
WILLIAMS: I will quit the day that homelessness goes down 90% in Oakland, and we see the illegal dumping go away. I'll quit, I'll walk away. I don't think we're ever gonna see that happen though. So I'm here, you know... Sorry.
REPORTER: This is about upholding a commitment.
WILLIAMS: I will like protect the honor of my worst enemy. Why? Because at the end of the day, we still deserve to… live the best lives we possibly can.
REPORTER: Immaculate in a powder blue sweatsuit, with manicured nails- Vincent embodies the maxim: cleanliness is next to godliness–for him, no matter where you live, clean streets are a human right.
