ASSOCIATION OF NEW JERSEY RECYCLERS

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1 ASSOCIATION OF NEW JERSEY RECYCLERS Serving New Jersey since Dominic D Altilio, President Marie Kruzan, Executive Director 120 Finderne Avenue, Bridgewater, NJ ANJR@optimum.net

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3 Who we are; ANJR is a non-profit, non-partisan network whose mission is to serve as the voice of recycling in New Jersey through education, advocacy, and the promotion of professional standards. ANJR firmly believes that New Jersey needs an integrated solid waste management plan, and will facilitate that plan with education and advocacy around the issues of: Recycling Source Reduction Household Hazardous Waste Management Composting

4 What we do; Education and Promotion of Professional Standards ANJR sponsors and offers a wide variety of educational programs and resources to its members. Quarterly Membership Meetings Presents concentrated information on markets, current legislation, new initiatives & opportunities, and much more. Periodic Roundtables / Site Visits Focusing on such diverse issues as artificial reefs, yard waste composting, source reduction, per-container rates, and food waste recycling.

5 What we do; Advocacy ANJR serves as an advocate of sound recycling policy in New Jersey. Some current and recent examples and issues include: Developing markets Promoting procurement of recycled products Identifying uses of non-traditional recycled products Packaging State regulations Battery Recycling Biosolids Management

6 What we do; Legislation ANJR strongly believes it must take a proactive approach in working with legislators and regulators to assure solid waste and recycling laws: are reasonable recognize market realities are not counterproductive don't create impediments to recycling in our state.

7 Current Legislation; Food Waste ANJR has been advocates for a limited ban on food waste disposal for the past two years; From a waste composition study released late last year by the Mercer County Improvement Authority, we believe that as much as 25% of what is left in the garbage can after 28 years of mandatory recycling is food waste; The State remains below meeting its statutory recycling rates of 50% of the Municipal Waste Stream and 60% of the Total Waste Stream with most recent statistics showing 43% and 58% Statewide rates respectively; Recycling food represents the poster child for getting to the 50% MSW recycling rate. Limited ban legislation was enacted over the past several years in our sister states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont and Rhode Island and the Cities of New York and Philadelphia have programs in place

8 Current Legislation; Food Waste ANJR was able to get sponsorship of a bill in the last Legislative session through Assemblywoman L. Grace Spencer. However, the bill never moved out of committee This year, Senator Bob Smith has introduced S-771 (which does have an Assembly companion as A-2417); This bill has many of the same provisions as what ANJR had proposed last year; Senator Smith did hold two hearings on the draft bill, for discussion only (no voting) on February 29 th and March 7 th ; The major outstanding issue is that many (if not all) of the counties where state-of-the-art landfills were built are concerned that the potential removal of food waste will jeopardize the operations of their methane gas collection systems that were put in place with the expenditure of millions of public dollars.

9 Current Legislation; Food Waste Senator Smith did introduce an amendment to his original bill that would exempt some universe of the landfills. However, he also expressed concern that he wanted to narrow the exemption; Senator Smith has scheduled a stakeholder session at his District Office in Piscataway for Wednesday, April 20 th in the afternoon. ANJR will be participating in this session. ANJR understands and appreciates the arguments made by the landfill counties and will not oppose an exemption; At the same time, ANJR would also like to narrow the exemption to the extent possible to foster as robust a Statewide food recycling program as possible

10 Networks! Through our classes, symposiums, & meetings we have found networking to be extremely beneficial to our members and our organization. ANJR encourages our members to work with neighboring towns, counties and state entities to build relations to help encourage and further our efforts to increase recycling in New Jersey. ANJR recognizes the efforts and accomplishments of like minded environmental, recycling and solid waste organizations and encourages continued networking and opportunity building relations with these organizations. Working together with organizations such as SWANA, AEA, NWRA and the NJDEP we can only advance and reach the goals we are already working on separately.

11 We FUNDRAISE!