New Jersey Awards $12.8 Million in Recycling Grants

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will be awarding $12.8 million in grants to municipalities and counties to implement and enhance local recycling efforts.

The grant money is made available through the state’s Recycling Enhancement Act, a law that provides recycling tonnage grants that the DEP makes available to local governments. The program is funded by a $3-per-ton surcharge on solid waste disposed at solid waste facilities.

According to the DEP, municipal governments receive 60 percent of the money the fund generates to help them enhance outreach and compliance efforts. The balance is awarded to county solid waste management and household hazardous-waste collection programs, county and state promotional efforts and for recycling research. Individual grants are based on the recycling success local governments demonstrated in 2009.

According to a DEP release, in 2009, New Jersey recycled more than 11.6 million tons of the 20 million tons of solid waste generated in the state. The recycling rate for the year was 58.3 percent, a decline from the previous year’s recycling rate of 59.1 percent. The agency cited the fact that recycling of auto scrap dropped because of the end of the federal "cash for clunkers" program. Materials recycled during construction projects also declined.

New Jersey generated slightly more than 9 million tons of municipal solid waste, of which 3.5 million tons were recycled, for a 37.1 percent municipal solid waste recycling rate, a slight decrease from 2008’s rate of 37.9 percent.

A list of grant payouts and other recycling data is available at www.nj.gov/dep/dshw/recycling/stats.htm.