By Michael Egenton
New Jersey has a long history of setting the tone for the rest of the country when it comes to recycling. We were the first state to mandate comprehensive recycling statewide nearly 40 years ago and, since then, have continued to recognize the importance of recycling and waste reduction. We’ve also taken steps to reduce our reliance on single-use items and encourage more reusable products.
As the Garden State, New Jerseyans take pride in maintaining a clean, healthy environment that everyone can enjoy.
However, while we have made great strides to maximize what we can do with the processes available to us, we have fallen behind other states in embracing new technologies that would allow us to do far more. As a leader in recycling, New Jersey’s legislature should be adopting bold frameworks that incentivize advanced recycling techniques, which would encourage innovative industries to develop a robust circular economy for the complex plastics we use every day.
While the recycling process we use today can effectively handle the breaking down and reuse of things like plastic bottles and cardboard boxes, the process is still extremely wasteful. Studies have found that only 9% of plastic waste worldwide is successfully recycled, with the other 91% ending up in landfills, being incinerated, or leaking into the environment. This tremendous amount of plastic waste is caused by our current process’s inability to remove things like oils, food waste, grease, and other materials from plastics. Meaning that many of the things we assumed we were already recycling, like chip bags and other food waste, often end up in our state’s landfills.
However, while this trend is concerning, new innovations in the industry offer a far less wasteful path forward. Rather than breaking things down mechanically, as we do now, the advanced recycling process uses an innovative chemical process to return solid plastics back into raw materials. These liquids and gases are then used to build new plastics that are chemically indistinguishable from non-recycled polymers, allowing them to be used as any other plastic would be. Beyond the amount of waste this would keep out of our landfills, reducing their operating costs, it would also encourage a more sustainable circular economy, lowering our state’s emission footprint.
Outside of the many environmental benefits advanced recycling could bring to New Jersey, it would also offer new jobs and economic growth. As an emerging industry experiencing surging demand from consumers calling for more sustainably produced products, advanced recycling could open new opportunities for our state, as it has for the states that have already adopted it.
In fact, since 2017, the industry has created more than 40 projects, representing over $7 billion in investment and diverting nearly 9 million metric tons of waste from U.S. landfills. Should New Jersey embrace the technology, we would be opening the door to new investments and growth, helping us shed the negative economic outlook we have seen in the past few years.
Today, residents in 25 states are already benefiting from rules expanding advanced recycling in their communities. Considering the economic and environmental benefits offered by advanced recycling, New Jersey should become the next state to adopt this essential technology. It’s never too late to do the right thing — passing enabling legislation this session would propel us on a path toward sustainability-driven growth and job creation.
In the Legislature, state Sen. John McKeon (D-Essex), Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald (D-Burlington, Camden), and Assemblywoman Jessica Ramirez (D-Hudson) are sponsoring bipartisan legislation, A-2776, to take the first step in allowing advanced plastic recycling in the Garden State.
This legislation is supported by the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce and many other stakeholders who share our concerns for improving our state’s recycling efforts.
As lawmakers align on their priorities for the rest of this session, I urge them to give this initiative their full consideration.
Michael Egenton is Executive Vice President for Government Relations of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce.
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