Members of the Martin Bloom Pavilion, excited to receive a free 'Bag It Forward' bag.
By NANETTE LoBIONDO GALLOWAY
Downbeach green team members who were the first in the state to advocate against the proliferation of plastic bag litter said they are pleased to learn that NJ Gov. Phil Murphy passed one of the most restrictive plastic product bans in the country.
Plastic bags are one of the most problematic forms of garbage, leading to millions of discarded bags that stream annually to our landfills, rivers and oceans, Murphy said in a statement after signing the bill. With today's historic signing, we are addressing the problem of plastic pollution head-on with solutions that will help mitigate climate change and strengthen our environment for future generations.
Murphy signed the bill on Wednesday, Nov. 4, but it does not take full effect until May 2022.
We are so excited that something we worked hard on finally got approved, Ventnor Green Team Chairwoman Diane Birkbeck said. We had been politicking in many municipalities and it got traction in Princeton, but Somers Point really came through for us.
Longport Borough was the first municipality to impose a 10-cents fee on the distribution of plastic bags in 2016 but it was mostly symbolic because the tiny and wealthy hamlet has only three businesses a fine dining restaurant, a popular luncheonette and a real estate office.
Ventnor, which is home to an Acme supermarket, also imposed a 5-cents fee and used a $10,000 Sustainable Jersey grant to educate the public for six months that they would have to bring their own bags to stores or be charged a fee. The controversial ordinance, which was approved by the Board of Commissioners and went into effect Oct. 1, 2018, helped reduce plastic pollution, especially along Wellington Avenue, a bayfront roadway that welcomes visitors to Ventnor.
We had a lot less bags laying around before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Birkbeck said.
Although there was some pushback from residents over being charged a fee, Mayor Beth Holtzman said it was the first step in changing the daily lives of people for the better&we did what we could for future generations.
Birkbeck said the long timeframe to phase-in the statewide ban on plastic and paper bags and polystyrene containers will give retailers time to plan and use up their stock of plastic bags.
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Absecon Island shore towns were among the first to advocate against plastic bags, after then-Sustainable Margate Chairwoman Monica Coffey, who was a communication manager at the Atlantic County Utilities Authority, which processes recycling for the county, approached the Margate Board of Commissioners about banning plastic bags or imposing a fee on their distribution. Margate passed on the suggestion, and the Margate Business Association instead developed its Bag It Forward program, which distributed thousands of reusable bags in the community.
The Surfrider Foundation South Jersey Chapter provided an educational component to the advocacy effort by providing several showings of the full-length documentary film, Bag-It, and later, The Problem with Plastics, not only on Absecon Island but also in Cape May County and mainland communities. The ACUA even created a costume using bags from its Recycling Center, dubbed The Bag-It Monster, which was a favorite of school children.
Longport Mayor Nicholas Russo said Longport's goal was to sensitize people to the problems with plastic and how it ends up in our marine environment.
During our educational campaign, I was amazed at the number of young people in high school and college who had positive comments about it. It seems the younger residents embraced it in a more positive fashion than the older folks, Russo said. But now I see many people bringing their reusable bags when they go shopping. I think we are going in a positive direction with this.
According to Sustainable Margate's current chairman, Steve Jasiecki, Sustainable Downbeach hub's grass-roots advocacy paid off in the form of an outright ban.
We feel that our efforts paid off with Longport being the first city in the state to adopt the first plastic bag ordinance. This broke ground and paved the way for other towns to adopt their own ordinances, he said. Our goal was to raise awareness of an accumulating problem and stop the flood of plastics for future generations.
Somers Point, which has a large retail district with numerous big box stores, adopted an ordinance in 2019 imposing a 5-cent fee on each single-use plastic bag at food stores and retail chains, but on Jan. 16, the City Council made an even bolder move to remove the fee and instead ban single-use plastic bags altogether. It was the 27th NJ municipality to adopt a single-use plastic bag ban or fee.
In July 2018, the Atlantic County Board of Chosen Freeholders unanimously approved an ordinance banning the use of single-use plastic bags and straws in county parks.
Instead of every municipality having its own version of a ban or fee that would make it difficult to enforce, retailers advocated for a statewide law.
Deceased NJ Sen. Jim Whelan was the first to introduce a bag fee ordinance in the Legislature. However, Murphy vetoed a bill that would set back efforts to prevent plastic waste, Clean Water Action NJ State Director Amy Goldsmith said.
She thanked Murphy for signing the nation's strongest waste reduction law.
It was well worth the wait. New Jersey is now leading the paradigm shift away from single-use disposable to reusables, she said in a statement.
According to Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action, which conducts twice-a-year beach cleanups and tracks litter found on beaches throughout the state, including 7.2 million pieces of mostly plastic trash, it's a good day for marine critters and the power of the people&we've successfully drawn a line in the sand and made New Jersey a world leader in reducing the plastic plague on this marvel of a planet.
The law bans both paper and plastic single-use bags, as well as disposable food containers and drinking cups made out of polystyrene foam. Murphy said paper bags require resources and energy to produce, which contributes to pollution. Moving forward, the focus will be on using reusable bags, he said.
Under the new law, food service businesses will be allowed to provide single-use plastic straws only upon request starting November 2021.
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