KING COUNTY - Peter Trench looks for the big stuff. "Something that's going to be a hazard to the public," he says.

He's talking about all the debris people dump on our highways. The stuff that could hurt you, or kill you.

Imagine a piece of sheet metal flying through your windshield. "This came off of 167," says Trench while holding a jagged piece of metal.

Trench has worked for 14 years for the Department of Transportation removing debris from the roads.

Some people have some nerve. In the maintenance facility Trench showed us some of the things they've removed from the highways: A water cooler. A dishwasher. The back seat of a car.

"These are aluminum chairs," says Trench who figures the chairs he found flew out of the back of someone's truck. That was likely an accident, but the old computer and typewriter Trench found on the shoulder of State Route 167 probably weren't an accident.

People dump stuff to save money -- no dumping fees when they can dump it on the roads. But if they get caught, it'll cost them, from $500 to $5,000, and a year in jail if if they dump anything greater than a cubic yard.

It's all in a day's work for Trench, making your roads safer, one piece of debris at a time.

"I don't know what I'm looking for until I see it," he said, "something that doesn't belong there!"