Report: N.J’s Solid-Waste And Recycling Biz Still Mobbed-Up [AUDIO]

Hit T.V. shows like the Sopranos and countless Mafia movies have used the lucrative waste-hauling and the mob's involvement in it as a backdrop.

The New Jersey State Commission of Investigation (SCI) is out with a report today revealing that's not just a stereotype.

SCI assistant director Lee Seglem who authored the report says, "Individuals who have been booted from the industry in other states have come here and they've set up schemes to profit from the solid-waste industry through front companies and that sort of thing…..We're looking basically at a regulatory and oversight system and a State law here that has so many loopholes in it that you could drive a garbage truck through it and unfortunately, at the wheel of some of those trucks are people who have significant criminal records, who are associated with organized crime."

The report focuses heavily on longstanding statutory, administrative and funding weaknesses in New Jersey's regulatory and oversight program, established more than two decades ago in an effort to keep the industry clean. The SCI has reported on regulatory shortcomings on this issue on several prior occasions.

Seglem explains, "The other thing we're most concerned about here is the intrusion of criminal elements into recycling which is not subject to any kind of licensing in New Jersey yet and that raises all of sorts of concerns (because) I'm not talking about cans or bottles here. I'm talking about tainted, contaminated soil. Depending on how that stuff is handled you raise issues related to public health concerns."

The Commission recommends the program be substantially strengthened and that it be expanded to require - for the first time - scrutiny of individuals and entities engaged not only in garbage hauling but in recycling as well.

The SCI also suggests that authority over this enhanced regulatory structure be consolidated within the Office of the Attorney General, which cooperated fully with the inquiry and used it as a basis for a number of internal reform actions. With regard to bolstering available resources, the SCI recommends that the Legislature and Governor consider a variety of self?funding mechanisms to provide adequate support for this critical oversight function without imposing an undue burden on the taxpayers.

"We don't have a system for rooting those people out," says Seglem. "For example; sales people who are significantly involved in the operations of a garbage hauling company."