Plastics Ban Bill Released from Committee

The Senate Environment and Energy Committee has released a bill that would ban all single-use plastics. The legislation, S2776 (Smith) places a ban on single use plastics like plastic bags, plastic straws, and polystyrene. The plastic ban bandwagon is happening on a national and international level. California, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco have all banned plastic bags. Seattle, Miami Beach, St. Petersburg have all banned plastic straws. Inner Harbor Baltimore has two full time skimmers that pick up plastics. 15 countries like Kenya, Taiwan, and France have banned single use plastics. International businesses like Disney World and Starbucks are phasing out single use plastic straws. Counties, Towns, States, Countries, and businesses around the world are banning plastic and the numbers keep growing.

“This is the most comprehensive and strongest plastic bill in the nation. New Jersey is taking important and serious steps to reduce plastic pollution by banning bags, straws, and polystyrene. The bill also includes a ten-cent fee on paper bags given to consumers for carryout, which is another way to encourage the use of reusable bags that help reduce plastic waste. We’re also making room for a new industry with new jobs being created in sustainable and green packaging. Plastic products, especially plastic bags, are made from natural gas which means more fossil fuel use, more pipelines, and more fracking,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “We thank Senator Smith for his leadership on this bill. With this legislation, New Jersey is becoming a nationwide leader on reducing plastics.”

Bans on plastic have proven to be effective. For example, Los Angeles County saw a 94 percent reduction in single-use bags after implementing a ban. This included a 30 percent reduction in paper bag use with a 10-cent fee on other bags. In San Jose, they saw an 89 percent decrease of bags in storm drains, 60 percent fewer in creeks, and 59 percent fewer in streets.

““We also want to thank Governor Murphy for vetoing previous legislation in order to make room for this comprehensive and bold legislation to ban plastics. Many New Jersey municipalities have already taken steps to ban plastic because of how bad it is to our health and the environment’s health. Almost 20 towns have bans or are working on banning plastic. Waterfront cities like Hoboken and Jersey City passed ordinances to ban single use plastics, Jersey City took a step further and banned polystyrene. Lambertville recently introduced an ordinance to ban plastic bags, Styrofoam, polystyrene, and single use plastic straws,” said Jeff Tittel. “Some businesses and restaurants in New Jersey are already working to reduce their plastic waste by using paper bags and paper straws and this bill will extend those efforts statewide.”

Plastics can damage our waterways and ecosystems while increasing flooding in communities. Rutgers scientists recently found densities of about 28,000 to more than 3 million plastic particles per square kilometer in the Passaic and Raritan River. Beach sweeps in New Jersey found that beaches from Monmouth County down to Cape May County have micro plastics in the ocean and on the beach. Last year, beach sweeps also found that more than 80% of their trash is plastic and also found an increase in plastic straw waste by 59%. In July, more than a dozen Jersey Shore beaches closed when syringes, needles, plastic and other trash washed up.

“Plastic is a serious public health and environmental risk and we need to work together to clean it up. We must work together to remove plastic from the ecosystems, waterways and environment that have already been contaminated. By working together, we can create new technologies to remove plastics from our environment, such as the skimmers used in Baltimore. Microplastic has been found near our water supply intakes by the Passaic and Raritan River. This is a huge human health risk because we can be literally drinking plastic that have toxins in them. Polystyrene has even been found in breast milk,” said Tittel. “If it’s so easy to recycle these products like the supermarket lobbyists claim, why hasn’t it been happening? We still have a major problem and will continue to unless we reduce the amount of plastic being made and used altogether.”

Even if we ban plastics, we still are inundated by the existing supply. We need to look into other ways of plastic disposal, including possible recycling efforts. It can take up to 1,000 years for plastic to decompose and end up in our in our landfills or break down into micro-pieces that contaminate ecosystems and environments. Plastic bags have been known to clog storm drains and fill up detention basins which affects our water quality. We can’t afford to increase plastic pollution which means we must find better ways to recycle these products.

“This is an important day in New Jersey’s environmental leadership. Since we have become a use once and throwaway society New Jersey needs to start looking into ways to combat this plastic pollution and a state-wide ban on these products is the best way to start. We’ve found evidence that some stores who claim to recycle plastic bags actually throw them out in landfills. By reducing how much plastic we use, we will see less litter and less plastic bags harming our wildlife and ecosystems. This bill is imperative to reduce the use of plastics in our environment, especially plastic bags and plastic straws,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “This is critical legislation and we need the Governor to sign it by the end of the year.”

The Committee also released three resolutions to support cleaning up and reducing plastic pollution. They are as follows:

Plastic Pollution Clean-Up SCR135 (Greenstein) urges cooperative approach among all levels of government to provide funding and other resources to clean up plastic pollution. The resolution cites the United Nations Environment Program’s estimate that more than eight million tons of plastic end up in lakes and oceans each year.

Single-Use Plastic SCR136 (Smith) urges federal government to take action to require manufacturers of single-use plastic products to assume responsibility for pollution caused by those products. These actions include litigation against manufacturers of single-use plastic products to recoup clean-up costs, water filtration expenses, and damages to natural resources caused by discarded single-use plastics.

Plastic Recycling SCR137 (Smith) urges DEP and EDA to establish plastics recycling marketplace. In New Jersey, our post-consumer plastics recycling rates vary between only six to nine percent. This resolution urges the DEP to use money from the State Recycling Fund for research and development of a plastics recycling marketplace in New Jersey. Ideally, this would increase the volume of plastic being recycled and decrease the amount ending up in landfills on elsewhere in the environment.