You've only told part of the story. For household service the individual billings may not amount to much but when you multiply them by the number of households in a community, the monthly take is significant. But even that pales when you consider the "commercial" accounts - for businesses, apartments, retail outlets, etc., etc. Their rates go up and up, and many of them provide excellent opportunities for mob muscle to become "silent" partners - and eventual owners of legitimate enterprises. What's not for a mobster to love?

PLUS, bored wise guys looking for mischief can go into the operations of a trash company and make "smart" scheduling changes that cause havoc with unwary customers - like switching a twice a week customer from Monday and Friday [two traditionally busy days] to Tuesday and Thursday with the result that a store's trash overflows unhealthily every week-end. The official solution? Thrice a week service! More money for the same service! Genius!

But the other bad thing about this is that mob's couldn't get away with it in this country if it weren't for the collusion of local politicians. Another reason to not trust either.