NATION

'Mission Impastable': Hundreds of pounds of pasta dumped on New Jersey town

Claire Thornton
USA TODAY

Residents in a New Jersey town are tortellini relieved after local crews cleaned up a pre-pasta-rous amount of noodles dumped along a stream in their neighborhood.

At least five massive mounds of spaghetti and macaroni — with a spattering of ziti — lined a stream in Old Bridge Township last week, photos posted to Facebook show.

The Old Bridge resident who posted the photos to Facebook seemed quite upsetti about all the spaghetti.

Resident Nina Jochnowitz decried the "new type of dumping" of "excessive food" on Facebook, and estimated about 500 pounds of raw pasta had been dumped along the stream bank.

In the post, Jochnowitz thanked the local public works department for cleaning up the mess, which she likened to a "Mission Impasteable."

On Friday, local outlets reported neighbors said the pasta came from a nearby home that is for sale.

A man moving out of his mother's home after her death brought all the noodles out from the house and apparently dumped them along the creek, NBC 4 News said.

"He certainly had a large amount of pasta," Jochnowitz, 59, told USA TODAY. "How much pasta do you have in your cabinet? One box? Five boxes? Ten boxes? I think that everybody can agree he had a large amount of pasta."

Mayor Owen Henry told NBC 4 that the case is closed.

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More than 500 pounds of pasta was dumped adjacent to the streams intersecting with Hilliard and Mimi roads in Old Bridge.

The Department of Public Works went to the site and found what appeared to be 15 wheelbarrow loads of illegally dumped pasta along a creek in a residential neighborhood, Old Bridge business administrator Himanshu Shah said in a statement to MyCentralJersey.com, part of the USA TODAY Network.

Two public works employees who cleaned the area loaded all of the pasta in less than an hour and properly disposed of it, Shah said.

"We would estimate several hundred pounds of uncooked pasta that was removed from the packaging and then dumped along the creek," Shah said.

More than 500 pounds of pasta was reportedly dumped adjacent to the streams intersecting with Hilliard and Mimi roads in Old Bridge.

Shah said the pasta had not been cooked, but "moisture did start to soften some of the pasta."

Contributing: Susan Loyer, MyCentralJersey.com