In New Jersey, plastic shopping bags are recyclable, but they’re not in the curbside bin. When they enter your municipality’s recycling stream, they can clog or damage the recycling center’s processing equipment in the same way that hair clogs the curlers of a vacuum cleaner. Prohibited items include single-use plastic take-out bags, styrofoam containers, and single-use paper bags. Readers didn’t ask questions more often.
And no question was asked in a wider variety of ways. The simple answer? The new law doesn’t stop people from using plastic bags. It only prohibits stores from delivering them. The law only targets takeaway bags, not bags for sale.
Paper bag ban only applies to supermarkets. Therefore, any store other than a supermarket, a department store, a clothing boutique, or an electronics store can still hand out paper bags if they so desire. Supermarkets have limited options here, since they essentially can’t deliver any bags for free. Supermarkets didn’t want the added expense of providing paper bags, which cost three to four times more than plastic, are heavier to transport and take up more storage space.
Does not prohibit hard plastic containers. Restaurants can also use more environmentally friendly cardboard containers that biodegrade. Unlike New York City, New Jersey supermarkets aren’t required to recall old plastic bags. Some cities even impose fines if they find plastic bags to carry in curbside recycling.
While businesses can’t give away plastic bags to customers after May 4, they can do whatever they want with them between now and then. As for disposing of them responsibly, the state Department of Environmental Protection has no plans to collect bulk inventories of plastic bags. Do not place plastic bags of any kind in the curbside recycle bin. Your curbside recyclable materials can be placed directly in the bin, no need to bag this material.
If these bags break or become unusable for other reasons, then you should recycle them so they don’t end up in a landfill, waterway, or on the street, experts told NJ Advance Media. New Jersey’s ban on single-use bags and containers, one of the most stringent in the country, is officially in effect. Commissioner LaTourette said the paper bag ban is to encourage people to use reusable bags “by having no other alternative in larger stores. Residents can bring clean, single-use plastic bags for shopping to the Middletown Recycling Center (52 Kanes Lane).
When properly recycled (using a different system than single-flow recycling), plastic bags are valuable and can be created into products such as terraces, playground equipment, and fences. Because plastic bags account for more than 70% of recycling pollution in Middletown, decreasing the number of bags in the flow (recycling) will significantly reduce that percentage, Middletown officials wrote online as services expand. Because plastic bags account for more than 70% of recycling pollution in Middletown, decreasing the number of bags in the stream will significantly reduce that percentage. But if you’ve already accumulated an overflowing pile of plastic bags, the best thing to do is reuse them, not recycle them.
Businesses should look for municipal and county recycling programs, some of which have plastic bag delivery points, said Larry Hajna, a spokesman for the DEP. Always check with your local recycling coordinator for the latest news and updates on your local program. Currently, the cost of time and labor to remove plastic bags, along with the cost of properly disposing of them, will result in a higher waste disposal cost for the city as a whole. Ramos-Busot explained that it is more difficult to recycle single-use plastic bags than other forms of plastic.
If you recycle a product, grind it or melt it and reprocess it to obtain new products, so you use a considerable amount of energy in remanufacturing. Recycled plastic bags are often used in composite deck material, such as that found on many newer Jersey Shore boardwalks.