** Updated at 1:10 p.m. to add related news stories**

New Jersey residents recycled an impressive 40 percent of all household solid waste in 2010, according to the latest full-year figures revealed on Tuesday by NJ Department of Environmental Protection Assistant Commissioner Jane Kozinski.

Kozinski delivered the news to an appreciative audience of government and private-sector recycling participants who had gathered for an afternoon symposium at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey in Galloway Township to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the state’s Recycling Act.

Kozinski said that the 2010 recycling level of 3.95 million tons was a 364,000-ton increase over 2009. Overall recycling of household and business waste in 2010 represented some $276 million in avoided disposal costs, Kozinski said, and produced almost $500 million in recycled-material sales.

Kozinski moderated a panel discussion of the State of Recycling that featured Robert Anderson, regional business development manager for ReCommunity, Issac Manning, director of recycling for the Occupational Training Center of Burlington County, and
Dominick D’Altilio, president of the Association of New Jersey Recyclers.

Panelists addressing New Technologies & Innovations were Jerry Powell of Resource Recycling magazine, Rocco D’Antonio of Organic Diversion and Gary Sondermeyer of Bayshore Recycling.

Taking a look back at the history of recycling in New Jersey were John Haas, former Ocean County Recycling Coordinator, Mary Sheil, former administrator of NJDEP’s Office of Recycling; Ron Riskie, Mayor of Wodbury (first recycling program in the U.S.), Penny Jones of the Morris County Municipal Utilities Authority and Gary Anderson who created the ubiquitous “Casing Arrows” recycling symbol.

The highlight of the event was a keynote speech by former NJ Governor Tom Kean who signed the Recycling Act into law in 1987.

EnviroPolitics Blog caught up with Paul Contillo, the former Democratic State Senator who sponsored the Recycling Act along with the late Republican Assemblyman Arthur Albohn. In the following video, ANJR President Dominick D’Altilio introduces Contillo and his daughter, Angela Contillo Andersen, who is the recycling coordinator for Long Beach Township.

What’s been your experience with recycling in New Jersey, or in another state or country? Use the comment box below.  If one is not visible, activate it by clicking in the tiny ‘comments’ line.

Related:
Kean recalls fight to pass New Jersey recycling mandate in 1987
What you may not know about recycling in NJ (Video)
Meet Two New Jersey Recycling Pioneers- (Video Part 1)
Rechargeable battery recycling surges in New Jersey
New Jersey strives to regain its recycling reputation

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