ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates how the criminal element infiltrates the waste disposal industry in New York State and in doing so to raise questions on relevant legal and regulatory issues. It demonstrates through the document and the subsequent hearings the need to renew the State’s investigative efforts to identify and prosecute those individuals and corporations whose business includes the improper and illegal disposal of hazardous chemical wastes. While a complex regulatory system has been developed to manage hazardous wastes, refuse and septic waste disposal have been treated as separate regulatory tasks. The relationship between municipal and hazardous waste disposal became clear when the Committee conducted hearings in the Spring of 1983 on the problems of solid waste management. As the State and Federal government have tightened controls on the handling of poisonous industrial wastes, the business of illegal toxic waste disposal has flourished, in some cases bringing huge profits to underworld figures.
