Union County, NJ has announced the expansion of its reusable bag recycling program, aimed at addressing the surplus of reusable bags.
With the implementation of New Jersey’s Get Past Plastic law, which prohibits businesses from providing single-use plastic bags, many individuals have transitioned to using reusable bags. However, some people occasionally forget to bring their reusable bags to stores, resulting in the purchase of additional bags. Over time, this has led to an accumulation of excess reusable bags in households. Furthermore, grocery delivery services often provide customers with reusable bags, contributing to the surplus, a county news release notes.
“With Union County residents at the heart of this initiative, we are transforming excess into opportunity, creating a sustainable cycle that benefits both our environment and our community,” said Commissioner Chairwoman Kimberly Palmieri-Molded. “This program not only tackles waste but also represents unity and responsibility, showcasing the power of collective action for a greener, brighter future. Thank you to all of those who are involved in making this initiative possible.”
Residents from any municipality in Union County can bring their gently-used reusable bags to any of the participating locations. GOATote, Inc. will collect the bags, thoroughly clean and sanitize them, and deliver them to the Community Food Bank of New Jersey in Hillside. From there, the bags will be distributed to local Food Pantries in need.
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The state could have been the first on the east coast to sign up for offshore wind energy but backed off in 2018 due to its costs
By Jon Hurdle, Delaware Public Media
More than a decade after Delaware first considered buying some of its electricity from future wind farms off the coast, it finally has a bill that would set it on a path to do so.
The Delaware Energy Solutions Act of 2024 was introduced in the General Assembly on April 18, and supporters say they’re cautiously optimistic that lawmakers will pass the measure in the approximately 10 weeks that remain in the current legislative session.
The bill would instruct the state, on its own or with other states, to seek bids from offshore wind developers to supply power to Delaware; draw power from a project generating 800-1,200 megawatts – enough to power at least a third of Delaware’s electricity needs; pay no more than 110 percent of the average electricity price that consumers have been paying for electricity over the last three years, and invite bidders to include the benefits of their project for climate, the economy and public health.
The plan would also allow a developer to raise its costs by 2 percent a year to allow for inflation, a provision designed to avoid the disruption and even cancellation of some offshore wind projects in other states over the past year. Denmark’s Orsted, a leading wind developer, cancelled two planned wind farms off New Jersey last year, saying that inflation and supply-chain problems meant the projects were no longer economic at the price negotiated with the state.
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A resolution currently being debated in the New Jersey Legislature would allow voters to determine whether environmental rights should be enshrined in the State Constitution. Senate Resolution 43/Assembly Resolution 119 specifically asks voters to decide whether the New Jersey Constitution should be amended to make the State the trustee of public natural resources and guarantee citizens the right to a clean and healthy environment.
Senate Resolution 43/Assembly Resolution 119
The so-called New Jersey Green Amendment was first proposed in 2017 but has previously failed to gain enough traction to come before voters. Earlier this year, Senator Linda Greenstein and Senator Andrew Zwicker re-advanced the amendment with the introduction of Senate Resolution 43.
As in the past, supporters of the amendment maintain that environmental rights need constitutional protection to ensure that government officials act to prevent environmental harm. “Our environment is our greatest asset,’’ said co-sponsor Sen. Linda Greenstein. “We all need clean air, clean water, and a clean environment to thrive.’’
Meanwhile, business groups argue that despite its laudable goals, the proposed amendment would spur environmental litigation and hamper the state’s economic growth. “It is going to impact every major development that we want, or do not want,’’ said Ray Cantor, deputy government affairs director for the New Jersey Business & Industry Association.
Senate Resolution 43/Assembly Resolution 119 proposes to place the question depicted below on the ballot in November:
“Do you approve of amending the Constitution to grant every person the right to a clean and healthy environment? The amendment would also require the State to protect its natural resources.” If the question is approved, the New Jersey Constitution would be amended to provide that:
“Every person has a right to a clean and healthy environment, including pure water, clean air, and ecologically healthy habitats, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic, and esthetic qualities of the environment. The State shall not infringe upon these rights, by action or inaction. The State’s public natural resources, among them its waters, air, flora, fauna, climate, and public lands, are the common property of all the people, including both present and future generations. The State shall serve as trustee of these resources, and shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all people.” The wide breadth of this language may pose problematic to enforce and will likely result in significant litigation among New Jersey stakeholders.
Under Senate Resolution 43/Assembly Resolution 119, as amended, voters would be asked the following question: “Do you approve amending the Constitution to grant every person the right to a clean and healthy environment? The amendment would also require the State to protect its natural resources.”
Editor’s Note: In 1971, Pennsylvania lawmakers amended the state’s constitution to protect :
Natural resources and the public estate. The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people. (May 18, 1971, P.L.769, J.R.3)
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NJ DEPARTMENT of ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AIR, ENERGY AND MATERIALS SUSTAINABILITY DIVISION OF SUSTAINABLE WASTE MANAGEMENT
Notice of Rule Proposal Electronic Waste Management Proposed Amendments: N.J.A.C. 7:26-2.8 and 7:26A-1.1 and 1.3 Proposed New Rules: N.J.A.C. 7:26J Proposed Repeal: N.J.A.C. 7:26A-13
PUBLIC NOTICE Take notice that the NJ Department of Environmental Protection (Department) is proposing the promulgation of new Electronic Waste Management rules at N.J.A.C. 7:26J, amendments to N.J.A.C. 7:26-2 and N.J.A.C. 7:26A-1, and the repeal of N.J.A.C. 7:26A-13.
This proposed rulemaking amends the electronic waste recycling program requirements to implement amendments to the Electronic Waste Management Act, N.J.S.A. 13:1E-99.95 et seq., which requires each manufacturer of covered electronic devices to provide for the collection, transportation, and recycling of its market-share-in-weight of all covered electronic devices collected in a program year. The Department proposes this rulemaking to ensure that the electronic waste management rules are consistent with the Electronic Waste Management Act, as amended, and to respond to a rulemaking petition filed by the Consumer Technology Association.
Because the Department proposes to establish the electronic waste recycling rules in a new chapter, N.J.A.C. 7:26J, the rulemaking includes the repeal of the existing rules at N.J.A.C. 7:26A-13, Electronic Waste Management, and conforming amendments in N.J.A.C. 7:26-2 and N.J.A.C. 7:26A-1. The rulemaking also includes penalty and noncompliance fee provisions.
A public hearing concerning the proposal will be conducted virtually via the Department’s video conferencing software, Microsoft Teams on June 12, 2024, at 1:00
Please join the meeting from your computer, tablet, or smartphone.
If you are interested in providing oral comments at the virtual public hearing, please email the Department at daniel.midgett@dep.nj.gov no later than 5:00 P.M. on June 10, 2024, with your contact information (name, telephone number, email address, and if applicable, the name of the organization on behalf of which you are speaking). You must provide a valid email address so the Department can send you an email confirming receipt of your interest to testify orally at the hearing and provide you with a separate option for a telephone call-in line if you do not have access to a computer or mobile device that can connect to Microsoft Teams.
Written comments are due by July 5, 2024. The Department encourages electronic submittal of comments. Written comments may be submitted electronically at https://dep.nj.gov/rules/rule-comment-form/. In the alternative, comments may be submitted on paper to:
Alice A. Previte, Esq. ATTN: DEP Docket No. 02-24-04
NJ Department of Environmental Protection Office of Legal Affairs Mail Code 401-04L; PO Box 402 401 East State Street, 7th Floor Trenton, NJ 08625-0402
Leading up to November 2023, when Danish offshore wind energy (OWE) firm Orsted decided to pull out of two major projects off New Jersey’s coast, there was broad statewide support for the initiatives.
But popular support for the projects, which had been as high as 80 percent among New Jersey residents in 2019, eroded in the intervening years, and a change in sentiment likely driven by social media contributed to Orsted’s decision to back out, a Rowan University researcher has found.
Dr. Alison Novak, an associate professor in the Department of Public Relations and Advertising within the Ric Edelman College of Communication & Creative Arts, believes the change in public support, which she said is now about 50 percent among all New Jersey residents and as low as 40 percent along the coast, was directly affected by X (formerly Twitter), and the ability for its users to interact with others around the world.
Writing in the journal Qualitative Research Reports in Communication last month, Novak found that the platform’s nature, which connects users through simple hashtags, enabled New Jerseyans to adopt a “globalization lens” in which they could study OWE projects elsewhere and compare them to those that were projected off the East Coast.
Based on an analysis of nearly 5,000 tweets, Novak found that many New Jersey X users became disheartened by various narratives, including that OWE companies overpromise and underdeliver in the construction of offshore windfarms, and that conservative positions often pushed by beachfront homeowners swayed public opinion against the projects.
“Users go online to negotiate the value of the proposed projects,” Novak said. “They want to know not just how this will impact my life but my children’s lives.”
Novak said conservative arguments related to the construction of wind farms, in particular that vessels used to scout locations and build towers, painted a false narrative that whales would be killed. Though the narrative was untrue, Novak said, it took hold.
Concerns about how the windmills will look, that they will negatively affect the aesthetics of the shore, were also distorted by conversations on Twitter, as were concerns about noise and how much the wind farms would ultimately reduce residents’ bills.
All of which weakened arguments for the projects, in particular how green energy initiatives like wind offset the use of planet-warming fossil fuels and that green energy projects produce good paying, long term jobs, Novak said.
“I think the anti-wind group became a lot more active and better funded since 2020 (and that affected public opinion),” Novak said.
Novak, an expert on political strategic communication, digital media policy, and digital activism, said in addition to aesthetics, noise, and concern for marine life, opposition to the projects played upon homeowner fears that the windfarms could result in falling values for beachfront properties.
“It’s about a loss of agency, that the government, and international corporations like Orsted, were taking something away,” she said. “It’s a classic American discourse that draws on a very conservative talking point that goes back to the Revolution.”
Novak said that while Orsted reps were somewhat elusive about why the company decided to pull out, experts widely believe that concern about future state politics played a role. The current government, led by Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, supports offshore wind energy, but future administrations, particularly those led by Republicans, may not, she said.
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Four months after New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed a law allowing a new kind of surcharge on water bills, New Jersey American Water is asking for regulatory approval to raise the typical customer’s bill by $2.50 a month. The new law created the Resiliency and Environmental System Investment Charge Program, which allows private water and sewer companies to request rate increases to pay for system resiliency, environmental compliance, safety, and public health expenses.
The charges, which are capped by law at 5 percent of a utility’s total annual revenues, were criticized by the state’s ratepayer watchdog because they can be requested outside of the typical rate case.
New Jersey American, the state’s largest water provider apparently is the first utility to request an increase under the new law in a mid-April filing that is now pending with the Board of Public Utilities. The surcharge would be phased in.
In total, the increase would generate $205 million for the company through 2027 for upgrades that will, among other things, help cope with emerging contaminants like PFAS, which are subject to new and more stringent federal regulations, and build a resilient system to deal with “climate variability.”
“This regulatory tool enables utilities to invest more quickly to comply with changing environmental regulations while spreading the costs into smaller, incremental charges,” New Jersey American spokesperson Denise Free said in a statement.
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