Trash Floods

A Flash Flood occurs when an area experiences amounts of rain so large that it cannot absorb all the water.

Well I propose a new type of Flash Flood: the Trash Flood.

A trash flood?

Have you ever noticed how bodies of water sooner or later become dumping grounds? Have a look at your local creek and you will most likely find a shopping trolley or car parts at the bottom.

So for the definition: A Trash Flood is a minor flood caused by a large downpour of water. This minor flood sticks around for so long after the rains that it begins to attract peoples’ garbage.

Case study

Consider the pedestrian underpass near my house. When it is not raining the underpass stays perfectly clean, but watch what happens as Trash Flooding takes effect.

(Above) On the first day of rain the underpass was flooded to a depth of about 30cm (1ft). Even though the underpass was heaps flooded, no trash had been dumped yet. Does this mean that Trash Flooding only happens to ‘old’ bodies of water?


(Above) After four days of standing the water level has sunken considerably, but the trash has suddenly cropped up. We now have several pieces of debris, including a tree branch, two shopping trolleys and a broken single-seater louge chair. We can come to two major theories from this information:

1. People dump more trash as the water level sinks.
2. People are loathe to dump trash into areas of deep water.

Read on to investigate the above theories.

Back to top