Add your name to the petition, and we’ll deliver your signature to key New Jersey lawmakers.

When you buy products at a store or online, they often come with massive amounts of packaging — much of it single-use plastics and it costs taxpayers millions to deal with. New Jersey residents have little control over how much single-use packaging is pumped into the market by companies, yet we have to pay to manage all that packaging waste — or, the waste becomes unsightly litter in our neighborhoods, parks and beaches and in our waterways, where it can choke wildlife, break up into tiny shards of plastic and leach toxic chemicals.

Plastic accounts for nearly all packaging that cannot be reused or recycled - but an exciting new bill in New Jersey could change that.

The Packaging Packaging and Paper Product Stewardship Act (State Senate bill 3398/ State Assembly bill 5009), introduced by Senator Bob Smith and Assemblymember Alixon Collazos-Gill , would require companies to:

• Reduce their packaging by 50% in 10 years.
• Make the remaining packaging reusable or recyclable.
• Get the most harmful toxic chemicals out of packaging.
• Pay for clean up of their packaging waste by reimbursing municipalities and taxpayers for the collection and processing of those materials.
• The bill would also prohibit incineration and "chemical recycling"from counting as recycling.

Why this bill is important:

Single-use packaging pollutes environmental justice communities where plastic is made and where waste that cannot be recycled is landfilled, incinerated, or dumped. New Jersey has 4 incinerators and 12 landfills that burden low-income and communities of color.

Single-use packaging harms people and our planet from manufacturing through disposal. New Jersey must use this critical opportunity to pass the Packaging Product Stewardship Act.