A South Perth man caught dumping rubbish on private properties, a verge and a construction site was fined $40,000 in Perth Magistrates court on Tuesday.
The Department of Environmental Regulation launched legal action against Jacek Kotnowski after he was caught on video and photographed offloading truckloads of refurbishment waste four times in eight months in 2014 and 2015.
The first incident occurred on July 31 2014, when police alleged the white Isuzu tip truck Mr Kotnowski was driving had dumped the contents of the rear tray loaded with demolition waste onto the driveway of a vacant property on Berwick Street in Victoria Park.
The remaining three incidents occurred across a two-week period in March 2015. On 19 March 2015, Mr Kotnowski dumped a truck load of waste including old roofing timber and polystyrene onto the road verge on Rason Street in Wembley, as well as another truck load of waste onto a private property on Mill Point Road in South Perth.
On 28 March 2015, Mr Kotnowski was involved in dumping old roofing tiles onto a construction site at Armagh Street in Victoria Park.
Mr Kotnowski was found guilty of four separate offences and fined $10,000 for each and ordered to pay the clean-up costs.
The department's investigations senior manager Matt Warnock said the prosecution sent a strong message to would-be dumpers.
"In this particular case, it's inexcusable that a person undertaking home refurbishments has decided to illegally dump the waste – a practice that can impact people's health and the environment and impose significant clean-up costs on rate payers and others," he said.
The department conducts around 220 illegal dumping investigations annually and monitors covert surveillance across the State.
Minister for Environment Stephen Dawson said he was disappointed illegal dumping continued to occur in Western Australia.
"We live in such a beautiful State like Western Australia yet we are still seeing illegal dumping occur," he said.
"I urge anyone who witnesses illegal dumping in the future to report it to DER's 24-hour Pollution Watch Hotline on 1300 784 782, so this behaviour can be stamped out."