How to handle chemical recycling is emerging as a key sticking point in packaging recycling legislation in New Jersey, with industry groups pushing for the technology to be part of any law.
Legislators in Trenton, however, appear inclined to put some limits around it, arguing that plastics made from chemical recycling should not count toward measuring recycled content in packaging.
That position is backed by environmental groups, one of whom said at a Jan. 13 legislative hearing that New Jersey's plan "has the potential to be the best in the country."
The debate is playing out as lawmakers in the capital of Trenton are considering extended producer responsibility legislation for packaging.
It was apparent at the hearing that the EPR legislation faces other hurdles, including differences over a 50 percent source reduction targets for single-use plastic packaging and measures to limit potentially toxic chemicals in packaging.
But the chemical recycling provisions attracted some of the most attention from industry groups.
The Chemistry Council of New Jersey and the EPR Leadership Forum, a group of mostly consumer brands, both told legislators that advanced recycling, as they call chemical recycling, is vital to meeting recycled content targets for packaging that the state has set out in other laws.
"We believe that advanced recycling is going to be what helps us to get to those goals, especially the recycled content goals that you have passed in the past," said Ed Waters, senior director of the Chemistry Council of New Jersey. "We'd like to make sure that … those products or that material should be counted as recycled material."
Similarly, a lobbyist for the EPR Leadership Forum said chemical recycling — a term to describe processes to recycle plastic rather than traditional mechanical technologies — would let New Jersey increase its recycling rates.
"In order to be able to continue to achieve the recycling rates that are needed and demanded by the needs assessment, the ability to utilize advanced recycling would be certainly helpful in that goal," said Sal Anderton, a third-party lobbyist representing the leadership forum, a group of consumer brands including Coca-Cola Co., S.C. Johnson and other packaged goods makers advocating for what they call "optimal" EPR legislation.
In 2022, New Jersey passed a law requiring recycled content in plastic bottles and bags sold in the state.
Environmental groups, on the other hand, listed the limits on chemical recycling as some of the draft legislation's strong points.
"There's a lot in this bill which is exceptional: the 50 percent reduction requirement, not allowing chemical recycling to count as real recycling, the toxics provision, [and] the implementation of eco-modulated fees so local governments get money to deal with their costs," said Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics. "There's an urgent need to get the details of this bill right."
As well, a witness from the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance told lawmakers that the 11 chemical recycling facilities built in the United States are not operating at full capacity and could only handle about 1.3 percent of all U.S. plastic waste, if they were at full capacity.
Brooke Helmick, the alliance's policy director, said chemical recycling pollutes communities around those facilities.