Tackling plastic waste in New Jersey
Global plastic waste more than doubled between 2000 and 2019, to 353 million tons annually.
The cry for help came from a frustrated mom.
“I throw so much plastic into our garbage and I hate it,” Kristan Mullane wrote a year ago in an online group for parents in the northern New Jersey communities of Maplewood and South Orange. “Lollipop wrappers. Baby wipe bags. Ziplocs…How can I be better? Help please.”
Community members responded to Mullane’s plea with advice, but their responses also revealed that she wasn’t alone in her frustration. Plastic proliferates because it is useful in many ways. However, it is made from oil, contributing to the greenhouse gas emissions that are catastrophically warming our planet. And when it outlives its usefulness—after a single use in the case of items like diapers and packaging—the options for its disposal can be inconvenient, confusing, and unsatisfactory.
Despite worldwide efforts, the problem is growing. Global plastic waste more than doubled between 2000 and 2019, to 353 million tons annually, according to a 2022 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
People can minimize the environmental harms of plastic waste by reducing plastic use, recycling plastic products correctly, and choosing products that feature eco-friendly materials and packaging.
Plastic recycling: do it right
On a sunny October morning, Tom Kelly, a resident of South Orange, drove to the town’s recycling collection point. He tipped a bag of plastic and glass items into the large roll-off container designated for bottles and cans.
“It’s better than throwing it out and filling up landfills,” Kelly said. “Hopefully it gets reused. You do what you can.”
The most important thing that people can do to ensure that their plastics are recycled into new products is strictly following local guidelines about what and how to recycle.
The types of recycled plastic that are most collected around New Jersey are:
Polyethylene terephthalate or PET, which are the plastics marked with a “1” recycling symbol, like soda bottles;
High-density polyethylene or HDPE, which are marked “2”, and are commonly used for items like milk jugs and shampoo bottles; and
Polypropylene, marked with a “5”, and often used for items like takeout containers and yogurt tubs.
The types of plastic collected for recycling vary among New Jersey municipalities, and polypropylene—like this takeout container marked with a “5”—is not accepted in all locations.
Regardless of the type of plastic, people should clean and dry their plastic materials before recycling them.
Workers and machines sort all the material that comes into recycling facilities. The more time they must spend separating out unacceptable material, referred to as contamination, the higher the cost of the recycled product, making it less attractive to buyers.
That’s important, because for the industries that may use recycled plastic—for items like carpet, fabric, food and beverage packaging, and outdoor furniture—the alternative is newly manufactured, “virgin” plastic, which is often cheaper. When people fail to “recycle right,” they inadvertently incentivize the production of new plastic.
“Really wacky”: the value of recycled plastic
While “recycling right” helps ensure that used plastic gets a new life, it’s only one of the many factors that affect the market for secondary plastic.
A spike in global oil prices, for example, will drive up the cost of virgin plastic, making recycled plastic more valuable. But it will also affect transportation costs, so a manufacturer may find that the most cost-effective choice between virgin and recycled plastic is the one located closest to the facility where it is needed.
The market for recycled commodities can also fluctuate with the seasons, said Marie Kruzan, executive director of the Association of New Jersey Recyclers. She noted that in the summer months, when hot weather drives people to drink bottled beverages, the uptick in recycled PET bottles can make PET a less valuable commodity.
The Covid-19 pandemic’s effects on both supply chains and individuals’ purchasing behavior roiled the plastic recycling market, as have subsequent changes in the U.S. economy this year.
“In August, as interest rates went up, people stopped buying, and the manufacturing delays slowed demand. The price [of recycled plastics] dropped. It was really, really wacky,” said Ann Moore, district recycling coordinator for New Jersey’s Burlington County. “For instance, PET bottles: last October, they were worth about $450 a ton. In June of this year, that skyrocketed up to about $850 a ton. And in September, it fell to $100 a ton.”
Despite the many factors that can cause recycled plastic prices to fluctuate, Moore said there is generally a dependable market for the types of recycled plastic that are commonly collected around New Jersey, especially for recycling facilities that use sophisticated sorting equipment to ensure a high-quality product for buyers.
“Vote with your dollars”
Large beverage and consumer product brands have made commitments to significantly increase their use of recycled plastic, which should raise its value over the next three to five years, said Moore.
Consumer demand is an important factor in securing those corporate commitments, noted Kruzan. Consumers can place pressure on brands to demonstrate environmental sustainability by increasing use of recycled materials or avoiding plastic altogether. And while a person could engage a brand directly to express their interests—with an email or a tweet, for example—there is an even easier way for individuals to send a message.
“Our dollars matter so much more than people even realize, because the second something starts to not sell, retailers ask, ‘Why isn't this selling? Let's get something else in instead,’” said Deanna Taylor-Heacock, owner of Good Bottle Refill Shop in Maplewood. At Good Bottle, customers can fill or refill any container with common household products like lotions and detergents.
“Vote with your dollars,” Taylor-Heacock said. “If all of a sudden everyone said, ‘I am not buying plastic Coke bottles, and I’m only going to buy aluminum because it's highly recyclable,’ the manufacturers take notice at that point…We have to let them know what we want through how we spend our money.”
Minimizing plastic use is the best option
A year after she sought advice about dealing with her family’s plastic waste, Kristan Mullane still has concerns.
As long as demand for plastic remains high, the problem of plastic waste will remain.
“I do feel uncomfortable putting all that plastic into the arbitrary blue box,” she said about plastic recycling. “I feel definitely a little pessimistic sometimes, especially around times when we get a lot of stuff, like the holidays, because I can't imagine that it could all be processed.”
Mullane’s pessimism is justified.
Plastics that aren’t labeled 1, 2, or 5 are not standardly recyclable at all; the technology does not exist to process them for reuse in an economically viable way. And even for recyclable plastics, there is a limit to how many times they can be recycled, because their quality degrades in the process. As long as demand for plastic remains high, then, the problem of plastic waste will remain.
The best solution is to avoid using plastic when possible. Tackling her family’s plastic waste problem at its source, Mullane now looks for ways to reduce plastic use, particularly with respect to packaging.
“I try to buy snacks for my children in larger containers. I try to buy the big bags versus the individual packages to cut down on waste,” she said. “We try to use Tupperware for the little snacks at preschool versus Ziploc bags.”
Mousumi Bose is another Maplewood resident who acknowledges angst about plastic waste and tries to contribute to the solution. One of her tactics is reusing the plastic containers in which foods like yogurt and cream cheese are sold. Sometimes, Bose said, “my husband or someone else will open up a container in my fridge and realize, ‘this isn't yogurt. This is leftover pasta!’”
Individuals’ actions make a difference
Even though plastic waste is a problem without a perfect solution, individuals’ actions are meaningful. Minimizing plastic use, recycling carefully, and using purchasing power to drive corporate change are all actions that people can take every day.
“You don't have to do everything,” Taylor-Heacock advises people who want to address plastic waste but feel overwhelmed. “Even refilling just one of your items can make a difference because it helps keep plastic out of landfills.”