Recycling in New Jersey to continue upward

Recycling in New Jersey to continue upward

By Jerry Powell, Resource Recycling

Twenty-five years after mandating residential recycling, New Jersey experts say the Garden State's materials recovery system will continue to improve.

Programs in the state now recover 40 percent of the available residential waste. But key officials say that the rate can go higher. According to Jane Kozinski, a deputy commissioner at the state's environmental agency, a broad stakeholder group is looking at ways to boost recycling, with the committee to issue a white paper this summer outlining the regulatory and statutory initiatives that would increase the rate. In addition, the agency is assessing why successful programs are such, and will issue a best-practices guideline to aid other communities to improve.

It's likely that expanding the numbers of communities handling all recyclables together (single-stream collection) will rise. Bob Anderson of ReCommunity, the major MRF management firm, estimates that more than two-thirds of residential recycling volumes in New Jersey are from single-stream systems. And this level is expected to increase. Dominick D'Altilio, the president of the Association of New Jersey Recyclers, points out that five additional counties are looking at such systems.

"Single-stream service is the biggest question being asked [in our industry]," says D'Altilio. One example is Burlington County, where Isaac Manning, the director of recycling at the Occupational Training Center, the county's MRF operator, says "the county may go with single-stream."

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