Autopsy Planned For Fetus Discovered On Conveyor Belt At South Jersey Recycling Plant

An autopsy was planned Friday after an employee at a South Jersey recycling plant discovered a deceased fetus on a conveyor belt on Thursday.

The employee at ReCommunity Camden made the discovery at around 3 p.m., the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office confirmed.

ReCommunity Camden is a recycling center on the 2200 block of Mount Ephraim Ave. in Camden

Officers from the Prosecutor’s Office and the Camden County Police Department were on the scene investigating on Thursday.

The cause and manner of death are unknown, and investigators were unable to determine the gender. Channel 3 in Philadelphia and other media outlets filmed the exterior area of the plant following the discovery.

Anyone with information is asked to call Camden County Prosecutor’s Office Detective Edwin Berwick at 856-225-8694 or Camden County Police Detective Saul Cintron at 856-757-7420.

Information may also be emailed to ccpotips@ccprosecutor.org.

The incident comes about three months after a woman allegedly burned her baby alive shortly after giving birth in Burlington County.

While the circumstances of this incident remain unclear, there are options for parents of unwanted babies under New Jersey’s Safe Haven Law.

This includes anonymously dropping the baby off at a police station or hospital.

The law states “the parents or someone acting on their behalf can bring a baby less than 30 days old to any hospital emergency room or police station. The New Jersey Department of Children and Families will take the infant into custody and place the infant with a foster or pre-adoptive home.”

According to njsafehaven.org, there has been a 60 percent reduction in the number of abandoned babies in the time since the law was passed in 2000 than the 12 months prior to the passage of the law.