Letter to the Editor

New anti-litter act contains smart solution

Mandatory recycling is not working in New Jersey. Disposable beverage containers -- plastic and glass bottles and aluminum cans -- litter our parks, roadways and streams, clog landfills, impact incinerators and accumulate in vacant lots and the ocean.

Litter wastes energy and money and causes pollution and CO2 emissions that contribute to global warming. Making alumi num cans from recycled ones uses 95 percent less energy than from virgin ore; making bottles from re cycled glass uses 40 percent less. Michigan gets back 97 percent of deposit containers; New Jersey re cycles maybe 33 percent. But up to 25 percent of commingled re cyclables may become waste.

The proposed Smart Container Act (SCA) has a solid payback. All container deposits are refundable and "smart bar codes" ease ac counting for retailers and recycl ers. Unclaimed deposits, projected at $50 million annually, fund environmental grants, education programs and administration and 25 percent goes to retail ers and new private recycling centers. By shifting recycling to the private sector, SCA also reduces municipal tax burdens and creates jobs.

SCA sponsors Assemblywo men Valerie Vanieri-Huttle, D- Teaneck; Linda Greenstein, D- Plainsboro, and Linda Stender, D- Union, are thinking. New Jersey can no longer afford "litter as usual." I ask readers to encourage their senators and Assembly members to pass the Smart Container Act now.

-- TERRY STIMPFEL, Robbinsville
The writer is chairwoman of the Central Jersey Group of the New Jersey Sierra Club.

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