How State Funding Spurs Recycling. New Jersey Leads The Race

There’s long been a push for the federal government to mandate nationwide recycling, but the power to encourage one of the basic tenets of environmental stewardship still rests with state governments.

Many states prefer to set up minimal recycling infrastructure and allow residents to participate on a strictly voluntary basis, but some states are taking an active role in pushing their populations to embrace recycling as a key component of everyday life.

One such state is New Jersey, which continues to excel at recycling nearly a quarter century after becoming the first state to initiate a statewide mandate.

Driven by its government’s commitment to improving and expanding state recycling programs, New Jersey has more than doubled the percentage of municipal solid waste (MSW) it recycles to 37.9 percent, which is well above the national average of 33.8 percent. When industrial and hazardous waste is factored in, New Jersey’s recycling rate rises to 59.1 percent, an increase from 57.3 percent in 2007.

Here’s how New Jersey transitioned from environmental deadbeat to national leader in recycling. 

The Jersey Uprising

This rapid ecological improvement is a departure from New Jersey’s past. A solid waste crisis gripped the state in the 1980s, which New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) spokesman Lawrence Hajna said led to the passage of mandatory recycling legislation.

“We’re a densely populated state; we have limited land availability,” he said. “We recognized early on the importance of conserving landfill space, and it grew from there.”

The mandatory recycling legislation of 1987 set a goal for New Jersey to recycle half of its MSW by 1995, but it missed that goal by about 5 percent. The recycling percentage dipped rapidly over the next decade, due to federal court rulings that struck down state solid waste-flow rules and the expiration of programs that funded recycling efforts.

The state bottomed out at 33 percent of MSW recycled in 2003, before new legislation was proposed to reemphasize New Jersey’s recycling program.

Among other things, 2008’s Recycling Enhancement Act established a $3-per-ton tax on waste deposited at New Jersey solid waste facilities. Money from that tax, estimated to bring in as much as $33 million per year, goes to fund efforts to expand recycling, including providing funding for recycling education programs and market development. 

Who Gets the Grants?

Most notably, 60 percent of the funding brought in by the tax on waste goes directly into the Municipal Recycling Tonnage Grant Program, which distributes grant money to counties and municipalities to help expand their recycling programs. In January, DEP announced $13 million in grant money that would be distributed to cities around New Jersey through the program.

“These grants are an investment in our future,” DEP Commissioner Bob Martin said in a press release. “Local governments will use this money to continue to build even stronger recycling programs as we all work to continue improving our recycling efforts.”

The grant money is assigned to the communities that have the highest recycling rates, creating an incentive-based system to drive increased recycling participation.

While that standard for distributing funds leaves low-recycling communities to fend for themselves, Hajna said using the money as an incentive is the most effective way to encourage communities to step up their recycling efforts.

“I think that, in general, people support recycling and want to do the right things,” he said. “It is our hope that everyone – all the counties, all municipalities – will take advantage of the opportunities that are available through the Recycling Tonnage Grant program, and work to achieve the goals that we all share.” 

Hiring ‘Cheerleaders’

Hajna said one of the best ways for a struggling community to quickly enhance its recycling program is to hire a recycling coordinator to spearhead new recycling efforts.

“If a town has a recycling coordinator, a lot can happen,” he said. “A lot of cases, all a town really needs to do is focus in on hiring that person that will really be… the cheerleader for recycling.”

Jersey City, located just west of New York City, will receive $267,674, making it the top recipient of funds in 2011. Vineland, Newark and Clifton will also receive more than $200,000 in grant money.

Cities use that money for a variety of recycling-related purposes, from new facilities and staff to enhanced marketing plans.

“New Jersey’s recycling rates continue to trend upward,” said Guy Watson, chief of the DEP’s Bureau of Recycling and Planning. “We are seeing steady and encouraging increases in rates for a number of reasons, including expanded public outreach efforts, expansion of the types of materials municipalities are collecting, and more convenient recycling options, such as single-stream programs that enable residents to put all of their recyclables out for collection in one container.”

Hajna said the $13 million devoted to municipal grants is a significant increase over the $4-5 million that was at the DEP’s disposal in the past, but that it still doesn’t cover everything the DEP wishes it could.

“We would certainly like to be able to have more money, but the reality is what it is,” Hajna said. “We think this a good way to get people to start thinking, and start funding some of the programs they need to get kick-started.”

Article by Ryan Huffman, Earth 911

Seed Farm Helps Restore Prairies

They look like weeds to most people. But to Ryan Brathal, plants growing along the ditches of rural roads can often be a gold mine. 

They look like weeds to most people. But to Ryan Brathal, plants growing along the ditches of rural roads can often be a gold mine.

Brathal has an eagle eye when it comes to native prairie plants and grasses, and he’s always on the lookout for seeds to harvest. It is, after all, his job.

Brathal is the farm manager at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources seed farm along County Road H near Star Prairie.

The 56-acre production facility was kick-started in 2002 when the Kinnickinnic Chapter of Pheasants Forever purchased land from local farmer Richard Hesselink.

The Pheasants Forever chapter then donated the land to the DNR as part of the Western Prairie Habitat Restoration Area that began in 1999. The idea for native prairie seed farming actually began in 1996, when Harvey Halvorsen, local DNR wildlife biologist, teamed up with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s St. Croix Wetland Management District office in rural New Richmond.

The two organizations previously spent tens of thousands of dollars a year buying seed in their ongoing efforts to restore native prairies and oak savannas in St. Croix and Polk counties.
In the early 1800s, before pioneer families settled this area and cleared the land for farming, there was more than 300 square miles of prairie and oak savanna in the two counties. Only small remnants of those prairies, totaling just one square mile, remain today.

“The seed farm was a common sense approach to restoring our public lands back to the heritage landscapes that once dominated this area in the 1800s,” Halvorsen said.

Not coincidentally, when the oak savanna and native prairie began to disappear, the grassland bird populations of the region steadily declined. The numbers of western meadowlarks, vespersparrows and bobolinks decreased significantly from 1966 to 2000, according to records. 

That’s why the Western Prairie Habitat Restoration Area was established in the two counties to protect and restore 20,000 acres of grassland and wetland habitat. As part of that effort, USFWS Waterfowl Production Areas, DNR wildlife areas and other public lands in the two counties are being restored to prairie and oak savannas.

The key to the restoration effort is establishing a reliable source of native prairie seeds. Years ago, conservationists decided to plant large plots of one seed type, such as switchgrass.

“While these stands were thick and helped pheasants survive the winter, they lacked nesting and brood rearing value we now find in the diverse stands of restored prairies,” Halvorsen explained.
“We thought switchgrass was the savior of the world,” Brathal said.

But a lot of the earlier switchgrass plantings were with seed purchased from southern states. These varieties didn’t fare well in these northern climates and the planting turned out to be of little help with bird and waterfowl production.

“A lot of things planted here just didn’t work,” Brathal explained.

Eventually conservation groups realized that there had to be a better way.

“We needed to have plants that were genetically adapted to this area,” Halvorsen said.
“This stuff evolved here,” said Tom Kerr, USFWS supervisor in New Richmond. “Why should we bring other prairie plants in here if they aren’t adapted to our growing season?”

Thanks to vegetation surveys of the region from the 1830s to 1850s that are still available, officials decided that an effort to return the landscape to its original condition would bring results. In recent years, hundreds of acres of land throughout the two-county region have gone through a transformation. The trees on many plots have been harvested and prairie flowers and grasses have taken their place. The native oak trees remain on the land to return the property to its pre-settlement condition.

As the restorations began, state and federal conservation agencies began buying prairie seed on the open market but were spending upwards of $30,000 a year for that purpose and could not find enough seed that fared well locally.

That’s when the idea for creating a local seed source began to germinate. Seed was collected from the remaining prairie remnants in the region and land for a seed farm was sought.

Over the past 10 years, the local seed production facility has saved the agencies thousands of dollars and has improved the effectiveness of the prairie restoration efforts.

“We’ve come a long ways,” Halvorsen said. “The plantings we install today will be here for our grandchildren and future generations. All these restored plantings need is careful application of fire and perhaps some well-managed grazing.”

Today, at the seed farm, five native grass varieties and 20 different forbs (native flowering plants) are grown and the seeds harvested for restoration projects in the area. Some of the seed, if the agencies had to buy it on the open market, could run between $700-$2,000 a pound.
It’s not uncommon for other prairie seed to run $20 a pound or more.

It took four or five years before the seed farm had enough established prairie to make a dent in the needs of both the DNR and USFWS (which split the harvested seed equally).

The DNR’s partnership with the USFWS and conservation groups like the Star Prairie Fish and Game organization has helped to move the effort along, Kerr said. Star Prairie Fish and Game financed much of the remodeling of the current Star Prairie Seed Nursery.

The operation of the seed farm is also aided by several state and federal groups, including the Youth Conservation Corps, Conservation Corps of Minnesota and Iowa, Conservation Education program, Wisconsin Department of Corrections and student volunteers from the University of Wisconsin.

Through the Conservation Reserve Program and land preservation efforts, Kerr noted, the agencies also work with farmers and landowners to restore prairies and improve wildlife production in the area.

Once a prairie restoration begins, it can take up to five years before a plot gets near the desired level of plant diversity. During those early years, a lot of weeding, prescribed burns and planning go into each project.


“Nobody has any idea what goes into getting a prairie to look that way,” Brathal said. “They think when you stop farming it automatically grows that way.”

The birds, however, do appreciate the end product. “The birds love this stuff,” Halvorsen said, as he pointed to several bluebirds flitting across the seed farm plots.

Article by Jeff Holmquist, New Richmond News

BIODEGRADABLE?

Pronunciation: [bahy-oh-di-grey-duh-buhl] – adjective.
Definition: capable of decaying through the action of living
organisms.

"Of all the environmental buzzwords, "biodegradable" has perhaps
been the most misused and is perhaps the most difficult to
understand. Because in the past there have been no guidelines or
regulations, many products have called themselves biodegradable
without any real justification. Unfortunately, the word
biodegradable has frequently been applied to products that
generally aren't (such as detergents or plastics) and almost never
used for products that really are . . .

“Sustainable disposal of any product requires that its wastes
return to the earth and are able to biodegrade. Nature biodegrades
everything it makes back into basic building blocks, so that new
living things can be made from the old. Every resource made by
nature returns to nature-plants and animals biodegrade, even raw
crude oil will degrade when exposed to water, air, and the
necessary salts. Nature has perfected this system-we just need to
learn how to participate in it.." - Source: WorldWise, Inc.

DID YOU KNOW??

Somewhere between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year. - National Geographic News, September 2, 2003.

75% of American shoppers say their purchasing decisions have been influenced by a desire to save energy and improve the environment. – Zogby/TechNet poll

70% of consumers say they would choose a green product if offered. – CBS MarketWatch survey

57% of American companies have either a formal or informal green purchasing policy. – EcoMarkets survey

64% of government buyers in the United States are subject to a green purchasing policy of some kind. – Commission for Environmental Cooperation survey