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A Brampton farmer went viral after returning a pile of garbage that was dumped on his field back to a nearby home.
Dave Snyder says he found a name and address in the trash and drove about eight minutes to deliver it.
The incident highlights ongoing frustration with illegal dumping, which he says happens frequently on his property.
Snyder hopes the viral video raises awareness and makes people think twice before dumping on private land.
A farmer in Brampton, Ont., is opening up about a pile of trash to a homeowner after it was dumped in one of his fields, an incident that has since gone viral.
Dave Snyder, owner of Forest Lawn Farms, recently posted a video of the incident, which took place in 2025.
Snyder tells Now Toronto he was simply bringing his tractor from a nearby farm when he decided to stop by his Brampton property to check on crops that had been planted two weeks prior.
@nowtoronto An #Ontario farmer tracked down a #Brampton ♬ original sound – Now Toronto
But what came next was unexpected.
“I just saw the garbage piled there,” he said.
Video shows an immense amount of trash lying in the field. Snyder says he was already in the loader and initially planned to remove it from the field, until he noticed that manyof the items had an address attached to them.
“A lot of stuff was all the same name and address,” he said. “I decided I might as well take it back to them.”
With the address only an eight-minute drive away, he did just that.
Video of the incident shows Snyder arriving at the Brampton home and requesting the homeowner. A woman informs him they are not home, but a young girl from the residence confirms on camera that one of the stuffed animals in the pile of trash belongs to her.
Snyder then proceeds to unload the pile of trash from his tractor onto the driveway before leaving, with music playing.
Snyder says the incident isn’t the first time trash has been dumped on his field, in fact, it’s something he and his family have experienced since he was a child.
“We’ve kind of grown up around being close to the houses and developments. And usually we get garbage dumped a lot like that. So it just upsets you,” he said.
Although it’s not the first time trash has been dumped on his farm, he says it was the first time he returned it after becoming fed up.
He says the issue happens more often to farmers than some may realize.
“It’s fairly common… that’s generally why we block off driveways so people can’t dump. If it’s dumped on the side of the road, the city or the town looks after cleaning it up,” he said.
After posting the video on the farm’s Instagram page on March 17, it has received more than 55,000 likes and 14,000 shares, with many people applauding Snyder for his actions.
Snyder says he hopes his actions send a message to those who consider dumping on someone else’s property.
“The odds of someone taking your garbage back aren’t very high, so I don’t think it’s really going to stop too much, but it’ll probably make people aware of it,” he said.