nyc: I was watching a documentary series on satellite TV called Trashopolis, and I was watching the NY episode. I didn't see the whole series, but I wanted to know how did waste management/treatment people and racketeers in NYC make money with garbage? They turned the trash into something but I don't know what - they mentioned that in the series but I missed that. I would like some help with this - please help. Thank you.|||Two ways. First, they monopolized the trash pick-up business- if you weren't mob connected and tried to go into business for yourself, you were threatened/ and/or hurt by the mob-including murder. The mob then was able to charge whatever they wanted to pick up your garbage. Second. they owned recycling plants for cardboard trash which they sold to legitimate recycling plants. They also controlled the cart-men's union, so if you wanted a job or to do business in the waste-management industry, you had to go through them. They had it tied up coming and going.|||'Garbage collection' may at 1st seem like something unimportant and disgusting, BUT think about it! It 'has' to be done constantly and regular (every week forever), right??? If you could make people pay for this 'service' (every week, constantly forever) over time it would add up to HUGE money wouldn't it? So, you get the politicians to 'change the rules' starting in the 1980's, to allow 'private contractors' to run the garbage industry that everyone must use every day. You allow them to charge as much as they want, and illegally beat up or torch anyone who doesn't want to use their 'pay for' garbage service. And soon in a crowded populated state like New York they're taking in $1 billion per year in garbage payments $300-500 million of which is profit to run their other criminal rackets, and the public is paying twice as much as it would otherwise cost them for garbage, the difference going to support organized crime.