Encourage the municipality to develop and implement a comprehensive Recycling and Waste Reduction Education and Compliance Strategy aimed at increasing the quantity and quality of recycling materials collected from residents, while reducing the amount of solid waste they generate. To do so, the municipality must formulate the strategy, enact a municipal recycling ordinance that incorporates compliance measures, conduct regular inspections and take a series of steps to educate the public on why and how to reduce waste and improve the quantity and quality of recycling.

Why is it important?

In order for New Jersey to achieve its statutory recycling goals of 50% of the municipal solid waste stream (MSW) and 60% of the total solid waste stream (TSW), municipalities must achieve greater participation rates. In addition, quality is as important as quantity. The shift toward single stream recycling has increased the quantity of recycling collections, but has resulted in a loss of their value and markets due to wide scale contamination by non-recyclable materials (i.e., trash).

Despite their importance, simply recycling more and better is not enough. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – in that order – is a maxim of sustainability. Every item we purchase has an ecological footprint resulting from energy use and other environmental impacts of resource extraction, manufacturing, packaging, and transporting. Reducing consumption, therefore, has the greatest impact on reducing waste of all kinds. Once waste is produced, the next best thing is to avoid the further pollution and consumption of energy and scarce land caused by trucking waste and dumping it in landfills or burning it in incinerators. Since recycling itself uses a significant amount of energy and results in degraded raw materials (known as down-cycling), it is more sustainable to prolong the useful life of that item by finding secondary uses or users (e.g., through a town-wide garage sale). Composting food and yard waste is another highly effective way that homes and businesses can reduce waste by 25% or more. Municipal education and compliance efforts should therefore aim to inform, motivate and empower residents and businesses to drive down the total amount of waste generated and deploy multiple methods to divert as much as possible from reaching our brimming landfills.

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection has published detailed solid waste generation, recycling and disposal statistics since the mid-1980s. In 2013, New Jersey reached a 43% municipal solid waste recycling rate and a 58% total waste recycling rate. These rates have held relatively steady over the past several years, and when compared to the national municipal solid waste recycling rate of 34.5%, are impressive. However, there is much room for improvement. The quality of recyclable materials put out at the curb and collected in office programs has diminished over the past few years following the proliferation of single stream collection programs. In general, this quality control issue is due to confusion about what can and cannot be recycled – a lack of awareness that can be addressed by a combination of education and compliance measures.

Municipalities can lead the way to increased recycling participation rates and improved quality of materials collected through a combination of targeted education and compliance strategies. Continuous, multi-faceted educational programs (including use of social media) will help make residents, businesses and institutions more aware of the need and mandate to recycle, as well as more knowledgeable regarding what should and should not be put into their recycling bin. Parallel educational efforts can promote reduction of total waste through such strategies as living more simply (consuming less), repurposing, swapping, donating and composting. Measures to increase compliance with the municipal recycling ordinance and waste management policies will also help improve recycling rates and quality while reducing solid waste generation. Informing residents of any opportunities provided by the municipality or county to recycle non-mandated materials, including and especially household hazardous waste, will also bring down waste volume, while safeguarding public health.