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N.J. City Enacts Comprehensive Plastic, Styrofoam Ban

Such bans can potentially help the promotional products industry by encouraging sales of branded reusable bags.

Lambertville, NJ is a small quaint city on the Delaware River, but its leaders have set out to establish a big precedent among the growing movement toward banning single-use plastic products and the like.

This week, the city passed a local ordinance that bans businesses within its borders from providing customers with any single-use plastic carryout bags, Styrofoam and polystyrene foam containers, and/or plastic straws. “As the first municipality in New Jersey to pass a comprehensive plastic ban, we are hopeful that we are starting a trend,” City Spokesman Rob Horowitz told My Central Jersey. “We believe our ban is ambitious and comprehensive, and our focus will be on effective implementation.”

The exception is that businesses can provide plastic straws at a patron’s request, but not otherwise. As an alternative to plastic bags, the ordinance indicates that businesses/stores can make available to customers recyclable paper carryout bags or reusable bags. That could mean more sales of branded reusable bags to local businesses for area promo distributors. “To ensure effective and user-friendly implementation, we are implementing the measure through a step-by-step, phased-in approach,” Lambertville Mayor Dave Del Vecchio said.

During the first 10 months of the program, participation from businesses/stores will be voluntary. The city’s environmental commission will track progress and work with the recycling coordinator to create a tracking mechanism. Come January 1, 2020, the mandatory ban takes effect.

Some business owners are frustrated.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy recently vetoed legislation that would have placed a 5-cent fee on plastic grocery bags throughout the Garden State. Still, environmental advocates hope that’s not the end of issue, and they’re encouraged by Lambertville’s ordinance. “Since we have become a use-once-and-throwaway society, New Jersey needs to start looking into ways to combat this plastic pollution and a statewide ban on these products is the best way to start,” NJ Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel said in a statement.