WHAT ARE THE FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE SUCCESS OF ORGANIZED CRIMES TAKEOVER OF THE WASTE HAULING INDUSTRY?
Organized crime has infiltrated a wide variety of legitimate businesses, but the waste hauling industry is particularly susceptible to the tactics that organized crime employs. Moreover, the fact that the individual carting concerns were originally small, family operations, largely of the same ethnic origins, closely knit and struggling to make a living in an occupation that was looked down on by the general public, made it easy for them to accept the “property rights” system as a means of protecting their livelihood. When the nation began to become more sensitive to environmental issues in the 1970s and laws were enacted to curb the indiscriminate dumping of toxic and hazardous wastes, it was natural for solid waste haulers to become involved in this business also. Unfortunately, the opportunities for windfall profits by disposing of the wastes illegally created new opportunities for organized crime. It also provided them with the added advantages that go with monopoly control, not on
