What could become nation’s toughest ban on plastic bags set for another vote

Credit: (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) File photo

New Jersey had been heading toward outlawing carryout bags until coronavirus hit. Lawmakers plan to resume action today

By Tom Johnson, NJ Spotlight

A long-debated bill to adopt what advocates describe as the nation’s most comprehensive ban of single-use carryout plastic and paper bags, as well as other plastics, is up for a vote Thursday in a legislative committee.

The measure, a top legislative priority for most New Jersey environmental organizations for the past few years, cleared the Senate in early March, but stalled when the coronavirus pandemic shut down much of the state less than two weeks later.

The legislation initially was hard-fought by many business interests. But the wide support for banning single-use plastic bags both across the country and among many communities has diminished some opposition partly due to the proliferation of communities adopting their own, often different, kinds of bans. Those opponents would prefer a single statewide law, rather than a mishmash of local laws.

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The New Jersey Food Council, a foe of earlier versions of the bill, now backs a total ban on both single-use plastic and paper bags, said Linda Doherty, president and CEO, although the group will seek a small technical amendment by the committee. The amendment is expected to be adopted, a change that will mean the bill, if approved by the Assembly, will have to go back to the Senate for concurrence.

In New Jersey, more than 130 municipalities have adopted bans, according to Jennifer Coffey, executive director of the Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions. At least eight states, beginning with California in 2014, have adopted statewide bans, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

“We think this is the right move at the right time,’’ Coffey said, “It demonstrates people understand this issue and they want action from their legislators.’’

Amending Assembly bill

The Assembly Appropriations Committee plans to consider two versions of the bill. Proponents are hoping the lawmakers will amend the Assembly version (A-1978) to match the Senate bill (S-864), which they view as the stronger step to reducing mounting plastic pollution, particularly in waterways and the ocean.

Besides banning single-use carryout plastic and paper bags, the Senate bill also would ban polystyrene foam food-service products and limit single-use plastic straws.

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Top attorney on NJ Governor Murphy’s staff, Matt Platkin, is leaving for Lowenstein Sandler law firm

Matt Platkin, chief counsel to Gov. Phil Murphy

By Daniel J. Munoz, NJBIZ

Matt Platkin, who serves as the chief counsel for Gov. Phil Murphy’s office, will leave his post next month for a position at the law firm Lowenstein Sandler LLP.

As chief counsel, Platkin – who was ranked No. 1 on NJBIZ’s Law Power 50 for 2020 – played a key role in drafting the myriad of executive orders in March that imposed restrictions on business and travel in New Jersey in an effort to halt, or at least slow, the spread of COVID-19.

An announcement for his successor will be made “in the coming weeks,” reads a Wednesday evening statement from the governor’s office.

Platkin is chief counsel to Gov. Phil Murphy and served as policy director during his gubernatorial campaign. In 2013, he worked on the campaign team of New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.

“From promoting commonsense gun safety to guaranteeing paid sick leave to reforming our criminal justice system, we’ve made meaningful progress to improve the lives of every New Jerseyan,” Platkin said Wednesday.

Former New Jersey attorney general Chris Porrino, who held the position during Republican Gov. Chris Christie’s time in office and also served as his chief counsel, is a partner at Lowenstein Sandler. Matthew Boxer, who served as state comptroller under former Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, and Christie, is also a partner at the firm.

The politically connected law firm was tapped by the Murphy administration for representation during the Katie Brennan sexual assault scandal. And, it represented the Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation facilities following an outbreak of COVID-19 that claimed the lives of over a dozen elderly residents in April.

Over the summer, Rutgers University contracted Lowenstein Sandler to investigate allegations of abuse in its softball program.

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A California city abandons recycling by the numbers

New focus is on plastics by item type, not resin numbers
he image by tdlucas5000 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

By Leslie Nemo, WasteDive

  • Long Beach, California, has dropped many #3-7 plastics from curbside collection. Instead, the city is introducing an item-specific recycling program that avoids using numeric designations and directs residents to recycle specific types of items such as milk jugs, water bottles and cereal boxes.
  • The Long Beach Public Works Department said it would prefer to not go back-and-forth with recycling guidelines too often, as frequent changes can cause confusion. So after a few years of no new markets appearing for certain plastics — and no options on the horizon — the city decided it was worth re-educating residents about collection protocols.
  • The decision mainly affects mixed plastics, but also includes other resin types. Items like plastic cups, cartons and takeout containers will no longer be accepted. The Public Works Department hired a marketing team to help design public messaging around the new guidelines, which the city said will roll out in English and Spanish soon. For now, how-to workshops are available in both languages on the department’s website.
  • Long Beach, California, held out as long as they could on dropping lower-value plastics. After international trade changes shook up plastic markets a few years ago, “we were hoping that local markets would somehow appear,” said Diko Melkonian, Public Works deputy director and bureau manager.

Through meetings with Waste Management and Potential Industries, the city’s contracted hauler and MRF, city employees learned those markets likely weren’t going to appear in the near future. At the same time, some of the disposal-bound products were amplifying contamination issues for more viable materials, Melkonian said. 

If the city wanted to collect only the items with post-consumer markets and ensure they were high quality, Long Beach would have to leave number-based protocols behind. While some PET products like water bottles made sense for collection and processing, takeout containers (PET or otherwise) did not, according to Melkonian. 

Other California cities have kept materials that Long Beach is cutting out as they work toward waste diversion goals. Sacramento re-introduced multiple types of plastics back in 2018 after temporarily cutting a number of items following initial market shifts. Melkonian and others in his department spoke with neighboring communities before making the changes, some of which might have a wider range of plastic markets depending on what customers are nearby.

“I don’t think there’s a right or wrong, but you need to do what suits your community,” Melkonian said, “and I think for us this serves our community best.” 

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Retooled ethanol plant in Iowa would make RNG to meet demand in California

A German bioenergy company’s reboot would make ethanol and renewable natural gas, though questions remain about its life-cycle climate and environmental impacts.

By Karen Uhlenhuth Energy News Network

A German bioenergy company is preparing to produce corn ethanol and renewable natural gas at the site of a failed cellulosic ethanol plant in Nevada, Iowa.

Verbio Vereinigte BioEnergie AG is building an anaerobic digester on the site that will annually convert up to 100,000 tons of corn stover — a crop leftover consisting of everything but the kernel — into a renewable fuel that can be fed into the nation’s natural gas pipeline system. Verbio hopes to begin production by fall of 2021.

The biogas, known as RNG, is more expensive to produce than conventional natural gas, but producers can turn a profit by selling credits to refineries and fuel suppliers in California, where a state low-carbon fuel standard requires annual reductions in the carbon intensity of transportation fuels.

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“In a facility we own in Germany, we make ethanol and then turn around and make renewable natural gas,” said Greg Northrup, president and chief executive officer of Verbio North America. “We are just taking what we do in Germany and bringing it here to the U.S.” 

Verbio purchased the facility in November 2018 from DuPont Industrial Biosciences, which operated the plant for less than two years. The German company expects initially to produce enough RNG to equal about 7 million gallons of gasoline. That will require between 75,000 and 100,000 tons of corn stover annually, which Northrup said is readily available within 50 miles of the plant. Plans call for expanding that to possibly the equivalent of 20 million gallons of gasoline.

The other side of the operation, corn ethanol production, is likely to begin sometime in 2022, he said, topping out at 10 or 12 million gallons annually. The residue from ethanol production will be added to the corn stover to produce RNG.

Northrup said it will be the first facility in this country to produce both ethanol and RNG, which he expects will be in demand. Oregon also has a low-carbon fuel standard, and other states including Minnesota, New York, and Washington are considering policies similar to California’s.

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Sunoco ordered to reroute pipeline after spill in Pennsylvania

A sign warns visitors to Marsh Creek Lake at the entrance of Marsh Creek Lake State Park in Chester County, Pa., where about 8,000 gallons of drilling mud is being cleaned up due to construction of the Mariner East pipeline. Kimberly Paynter / WHYY

Mile-long alternative route will avoid area where 8,000 gallons of drilling mud escaped

By Jon Hurdle, StateImpact

Pennsylvania environmental officials on Friday ordered Sunoco to reroute one of its problem-plagued Mariner East pipelines away from a site where construction spilled more than 8,000 gallons of drilling fluid into a lake and created a 15-foot sink hole.

The order from the Department of Environmental Protection was the first to demand a partial reroute of  the pipeline in its troubled three-and-a-half year construction history, and follows criticism that a series of fines and shutdowns previously imposed by the DEP have done little to improve Sunoco’s performance on the project — which has prompted the department to issue more than 100 notices of violation.

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“These incidents are yet another instance where Sunoco has blatantly disregarded the citizens and resources of Chester County with careless actions while installing the Mariner East II Pipeline,” said DEP Secretary Patrick McDonell, in a statement. “We will not stand for more of the same. An alternate route must be used. The department is holding Sunoco responsible for its unlawful actions and demanding a proper cleanup.”

The DEP ordered Sunoco to immediately stop all construction on a horizontal directional drilling site in Uwchlan Township, Chester County, and to prepare to reroute its 20-inch pipeline over an approximately 1-mile section that the company previously identified as being technically feasible but which was not implemented.

The company was also directed to submit full reports on how it spilled some 8,100 gallons of drilling mud into a stream that fed Marsh Creek Lake on Aug. 10, and how its construction led to the sinkhole the next day. And it was ordered to submit an impact assessment and cleanup plan for the incidents by Oct. 1.

The order said Sunoco re-evaluated the site, as ordered by a court, following two spills there in 2017 while it was building a 16-inch pipeline along the same route, and concluded there was a “moderate to high risk” that drilling fluids would be lost and there would be inadvertent returns.

The DEP noted that 33 acres of Marsh Creek Lake, in a state park less than 40 miles west of Philadelphia, had been closed to the public because of the spill.

DEP spokeswoman Virginia Cain said the order had been issued because of the spill but also because Sunoco had not acted on earlier assurances that it would prevent further spills at the site, following “inadvertent returns,” or spills, there in 2017.

“It was the nature of the spill, and the things that they said they would do if there was a spill, which they didn’t do,” she said.

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Lack of action on climate change could unseat Lindsey Graham

The three-term Republican senator and his challenger, Democrat Jaime Harrison both talk about global warming and they are neck-and-neck in the polls.

Graham v. Harrison

BY JAMES BRUGGERS, Inside Climate News

Three-term Sen. Lindsey Graham was once viewed as the relatively rare Republican who would seriously work on climate legislation, but since 2010 he’s been mostly missing in action on the issue.

Democrat Jaime Harrison, a former aide to Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), and the first black leader of the South Carolina Democratic Party, has turned out to be a prolific fundraiser and has been giving Graham a run for his money.

At least among some voters, climate change is becoming a voting issue in South Carolina, which has been hammered by powerful hurricanes and flooded by rising tides. But climate is being overshadowed by the pandemic and President Trump.

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