Fresh off the enactment of a ban on single-use plastic and paper bags taking effect in 2022, state lawmakers are now advancing plans to up the recycled content in plastics such as drink bottles – and along with it, ban packing peanuts. The bill has gotten multiple hearings in the Senate Environment and Energy Committee, which finally voted to advance a substitute version of it. State Sen. Bob Smith, D-Middlesex, said negotiations will continue over a half-dozen areas of disagreement.
“I think the overall testimony, at least as I heard it, was generally good step in the right direction,” Smith said. “We have a couple of issues left. Both teams, by the way, the environmental team and the industry team.” Everyone who testified said they appreciated the amount of discussion of the bill. Environmentalists appeared to endorse the changes while hoping for a few more tweaks, while business interests were pushing for more significant amendments to the latest bill.
The requirements for recycled content in plastics would require manufacturers to segregate the bottles and other products they’d be selling in New Jersey, said Ray Cantor, vice president of government affairs for the New Jersey Business and Industry Association. “Logistically it’s very difficult if not impossible,” said Cantor, who said the bill would also overwhelm an understaffed solid waste program in the state Department of Environmental Protection.