The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is awarding $16 million in grants to municipalities across the state to enhance waste reduction and recycling efforts. Grant recipients must use the funds to improve municipal recycling programs. Activities can include conducting educational visits to generators of recyclable materials to ensure proper source separation, sponsoring household hazardous waste collection events, providing recycling receptacles in public places, and maintaining leaf composting operations.
The awards are based on local governments’ 2018 recycling performance and are funded through a $3 per-ton surcharge on trash disposed at solid waste facilities statewide.
During calendar year 2018, New Jersey generated 9.8 million tons of municipal solid waste, of which 3.8 million tons were recycled and 6 million tons were disposed. This represents a municipal solid waste recycling rate of 39%. New Jersey’s municipal solid waste recycling rate exceeds the national recycling rate average of 34% but is below the state’s municipal solid waste recycling goal of 50%.
To learn more about recycling in New Jersey, click here.
