NJDEP Suggestions for Trimming your Holiday Wasteline

While most of us look forward to the winter holidays, our garbagemen don’t. Between Thanksgiving and New Years Day, they will lift about 25% more trash into the trucks than they usually do. That uneaten food, gift wrap and packaging add a million tons a week to the nation’s garbage during that time. Americans waste 28 billion pounds of edible food each year: over 100 pounds per person. Seasonal celebrations bear some of the blame. You haul the swag home, and the garbageman takes away the discards. Across the country, garbage tonnage is up, and recycling tonnage isn’t keeping pace. We’re putting more waste into landfills and incinerators, and we’re not pulling enough material out, to return it to the economy. This is even true in New Jersey, which has long been a national leader in recycling. New Jersey residents and businesses now generate nearly 20 million tons of waste each year. Although we continue to recycle nearly half of that waste, the amount of materials (paper, bottles, cans) that we recycle has not been increasing over the last ten years, but the amount of waste that is sent to incinerators and landfills has been increasing steadily. In fact, the state’s recycling rate for homes and businesses has dropped nearly 27% because of this. To combat this, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is preparing a more challenging Solid Waste Management Plan, and each county will be instituting innovations to reinvigorate recycling in New Jersey. There will be new rules to enforce compliance with state law, and more outreach, to get businesses and institutions involved. But good habits start at home.