500 pounds of cooked pasta was dumped along a New Jersey stream. It’s now a political issue.
An estimated 500 pounds of cooked pasta was found dumped near a New Jersey stream in Old Bridge last week, a local politically active resident told NJ Advance Media.
Nina Jochnowitz, who previously ran for council in the town’s sixth ward, was contacted by a concerned citizen who alerted her to the bizarre discovery, she said.
Jochnowitz said she was taken to the area to see it for herself and decided to snap some photos and post them on her social media account on April 26. The town was previously alerted and did not respond to the pasta dump, she said.
UPDATE: Pasta dump mystery deepens: Cops looking for source of ditched spaghetti and macaroni
She said she immediately reached out to the town administrator and the department of public works about what she had seen.
Her post, which included eight photos of the mounds of cooked spaghetti, elbows and ziti dumped along a 25-foot-wide area, garnered a lot of attention on Facebook and two days later, Jochnowitz posted again saying that it had all been hauled away from the site.
Jochnowitz said she was disappointed that it took her posting on social media to get the town to take action, but that she was glad the DPW cleaned up the mess, which is located on property owned by Old Bridge.
She said it was unclear how long the pasta had been sitting there before she was alerted to its presence.
While it may not be directly related, she added that Old Bridge is the only town in Middlesex County that does not have bulk garbage pickup.
No suspects were identified and it was also unclear if police were looking into the incident. Jochnowitz said she did not file a police report.
The township’s business administrator, police spokesman and town council president did not respond to an email seeking comment.