State Updates

New Jersey

A bill in New Jersey, S2515 submitted by Sen. Bob Smith, requires 10% recycled content for all trash bags, including compostable bags, and 35% recycled content/recycling requirements for rigid plastic containers, and is similar to California’s RPPC law. Due to the fact that there is negligible recovery of compostable resins currently, the Legislative and Environmental Affairs Committee and USCC agreed that requiring recycled content in compostables is an impossible task. USCC submitted a letter (see it here) requesting that compostables be exempted from the requirements of the bill. The New Jersey Composting Council submitted similar comments.

Vermont

There was an attempt to push back the enactment date of July 1 banning, down to the residential level, putting organics in landfills. Most of the arguments for this centered on the COVID-19 reaction, though nothing really could be tied to COVID so the date stands.

North Carolina 

HB 1119 was introduced in May, the Food Waste Reduction Act, modeled after NYS bill. It requires businesses over 2T to divert scraps to organic recyclers. It was introduced by Hawkins in mid-May and came out of the Don’t Waste Durham working group. NCCC is working with DEQ as well as DWD to build support.