One day in 1987, a load of medical waste washed ashore on the beaches of Monmouth and Ocean counties, New Jersey. Everyone wants to know where it came from, how it got there, and who is to blame.

Used medical items such as bloodstained bandages and used hypodermic needles wash up on the shores while people were vacationing.

The media called this event the New Jersey "syringe tide" incident.

As expected, many people became frightened, concerned and upset. This is just about the time when AIDS first started to make headlines. The last thing anyone wanted to think about was a bunch of old used needles and medical waste showing up on their luxury beachfront homes.

The New Jersey Police searched for months to find the cause and who is to blame. Eventually they found the truth. There was a company who was paid to properly dispose of New York's garbage, which included the trash coming from hospitals and other medical facilities. Instead of disposing it properly, they would ship it out in massive amounts and then illegally dump it over a hundred miles out in the Atlantic Ocean. Usually the Gulf Stream pushes the garbage north where it eventually sinks onto the ocean floor.

No one knew how long this has been going on. However, this time, a change in the ocean currents that year brought a large portion of the garbage back to the shorelines.

In response to the medical waste disposal problem, various state and federal agencies would adopt rules to regulate and control the disposal of medical waste.