Twenty-five years after New Jersey became the first state to require residents to recycle, there has been a precipitous decline in what’s ending up in recycling bins — a blow not only to the environment but to municipal budgets.
Mandatory recycling was driven by a worry about shrinking landfill space, but today, with more robust markets for recycled products, towns make money collecting and selling what’s left at the curb. Yet while recycling is strong in other parts of the nation, residents here are putting fewer recyclables out than they did a decade ago.
“There’s a recycling malaise. Recycling seems to have leveled off at a time when there should be a renewed commitment,” said Judith Enck, the Environmental Protection Agency’s administrator for New York and New Jersey. “It’s crazy to be burying and burning these resources.”
Recycling has declined locally in part because of the recent recession. Consumers with less money translated into fewer products purchased — and less need for containers or packing boxes. In addition, declines in advertising meant fewer newspapers, inserts and circulars to be recycled.
Still, many items that can be recycled aren’t making it into the bins.
In Bergen County, recycling has fallen from a peak of 549,363 tons in 1998 to an all-time low of 446,666 in 2009, the last year for which figures are available. In Passaic County, recycling peaked at 226,683 tons in 1995, then dropped to 197,932 by 2009.
“It’s very convenient to just throw something out,” said Guy Picone, director of public works in Paramus. “People don’t realize the cost involved to take it away.”
The state’s recycling law was passed in 1987, driven by concerns that landfills were quickly filling up. At the time, officials hoped to recycle 25 percent of the waste stream. In 1993, the goal was raised to 50 percent.
“We have not achieved it,” said Guy Watson, chief of recycling for the state Department of Environmental Protection. Only 37 percent of waste was recycled statewide in 2009.
To get people to follow the law and recycle, officials have mailed brochures to homes and held recycling events to educate the public. But even giving residents free bins to hold their recyclables doesn’t seem to be enough.
Source: NewJersey.com
By James M. O’Neill