"Carryout Bag Reduction and Recycling Act" [View all]

Bill S-812 was approved by the New Jersey Senate Environment Committee last week. This bill would require a five-cent fee for each paper or plastic bag a customer gets at a checkout counter, as well as a five-cent refund for each bag provided by the customer. Out of the five-cent fee, the merchant would keep one cent, and the remaining four cents would go toward cleaning up our beautiful Barnegat Bay. A similar bill went into effect in Washington, D.C., in 2010 and reduced plastic bag use there by 60%!

If you think about it, there is no reason plastic and paper bags should be free. Stores pay about 1 cent for each plastic bag and pass this on to their customers. The bags then go on to litter our beaches and parks, and taxpayers have to pay for cleanup. I've been using cloth bags for many years, but I still see stores put a single egg carton in its own bag without asking the customer. I also see people getting just a milk jug at the WaWa and asking the cashier to double-bag it even though it has a handle. The reason a small fee can be so effective is that it makes people think twice about getting a bag they don't need.

The plastic-bag industry is against this bill. They claim recycling is the solution. While recycling plastic bags is better than throwing them away, only a tiny percentage of plastic bags are returned for recycling. First of all, you can't recycle plastic bags along with your curbside recycling, since they jam recycling machines. You have to take them to participating stores to be recycled. Even then, they don't get recycled into more bags but rather "down-cycled" into lawn furniture and the like. In other words, if you don't reduce your plastic bag use but simply recycle your bags, you will continue to get new bags made out of virgin plastic. And plastic, once created, never disappears. (There is no living organism that can feed on it and break it down.)

If this bill passes and gets signed into law, New Jersey will become the first state to have passed legislation to reduce our reliance on single-use bags. This would be a great first step toward making New Jersey a leader in environmental responsibility. If you live in New Jersey, please sign this petition to tell your senators that you support this bill:

http://signon.org/sign/vote-yes-on-plastic-bag

If you do nothing, this bill will most likely die like the ones that came before it. Please take action!