Clean Communities

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE NJ CLEAN COMMUNITIES PROGRAM

New Jer­sey Clean Com­mu­ni­ties is a statewide litter-abatement pro­gram. It is funded by the Clean Com­mu­ni­ties Act and man­aged by the New Jer­sey Depart­ment of Trea­sury and Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion as well as the New Jer­sey Clean Com­mu­ni­ties Coun­cil. It isembraced by busi­nesses, com­mu­nity orga­ni­za­tions, schools and indi­vid­u­als who work together to keep New Jer­sey clean.

The Clean Com­mu­ni­ties Act, passed in 1986, was most recently reau­tho­rized in Decem­ber 2002. The Act cre­ates a statewide lit­ter abate­ment pro­gram by plac­ing a user-fee on the man­u­fac­tures, whole­salers and dis­trib­u­tors of lit­ter gen­er­at­ing prod­ucts. The user fee gen­er­ates approx­i­mately $14 mil­lion each year.

• $4 mil­lion is dis­trib­uted to towns in the form of recy­cling grants
• $300,000 is dis­trib­uted to a non profit orga­ni­za­tion for the imple­men­ta­tion of statewide edu­ca­tion related to lit­ter abatement
• Of the bal­ance, 80% goes to 559 eli­gi­ble munic­i­pal­i­ties, 10% goes to 21 coun­ties, and 10% goes to NJDEP-Division of parks & Forestry

The New Jer­sey Clean Com­mu­ni­ties pro­gram is a three fold attack on lit­ter. Cleanup; hold at least one day of pub­lic lands cleanup by com­mu­nity vol­un­teers. Enforce­ment; adopt and enforce anti-litter laws, and Edu­ca­tion – estab­lish an edu­ca­tion pro­gram within the com­mu­nity for adults and children.

What is Litter?

Lit­ter is a solid waste that is out of place. It’s the kind of trash found on our streets, high­ways, lake­fronts, parks and school grounds. Lit­ter takes many forms: paper, plas­tics, metal cans, cig­a­rette butts, glass, food pack­ag­ing, graf­fiti and tires.

There are seven sources of lit­ter: pedes­tri­ans, motorists, over­flow­ing house­hold garbage, over­flow­ing com­mer­cial con­tain­ers, indus­trial and com­mer­cial load­ing docks, con­struc­tion sites and uncov­ered trucks. Lit­ter is wind­blown until it gets trapped somewhere.

Even small amounts of lit­ter are unsightly, unhealthy and dan­ger­ous. Lit­ter may cause dis­ease, fire, pol­lu­tion, acci­dents, poor morale, increased taxes, blighted land­scapes, declin­ing tourism and indus­try, loss of civic pride and morale and a neg­a­tive pub­lic image.

The fol­low­ing steps can be taken to clean up lit­ter. Get involved! Adopt-a-spot (river, road, park or school) to keep clean on a reg­u­lar basis or orga­nize a cleanup day.

Lit­ter is everyone’s respon­si­bil­ity, so every­one needs to be involved. Busi­nesses, indus­try, civic orga­ni­za­tion, schools, and all res­i­dents should par­tic­i­pate either by rep­re­sent­ing or sup­port­ing our efforts to keep Mon­roe Town­ship clean.

For more infor­ma­tion regard­ing the Mon­roe Town­ship Clean Com­mu­ni­ties Pro­gram con­tact Jackie Wal­lace at (856) 728‑9800 exten­sion 249 or

jwallace@monroetownshipnj.org.

Click here to read the rules for Clean Communities

Click here to print out the application