Sponsored by:
Senator BOB SMITH
District 17 (Middlesex and Somerset)
SYNOPSIS
"Packaging Product Stewardship Act."
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
As introduced.
An Act concerning the disposal of packaging products, amending P.L.1970, c.39, and supplementing Title 13 of the Revised Statutes.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. (New section) This act shall be known and may be cited as the "Packaging Product Stewardship Act."
2. (New section) As used in this act:
"Commissioner" means the Commissioner of Environmental Protection.
"Department" means the Department of Environmental Protection.
"Environmentally sound management practices" means policies or procedures for the collection, storage, transportation, reuse, and recycling or disposal of discarded packaging products, which policies or procedures are established by the department and implemented by a producer or a group of producers to: ensure compliance with all applicable federal, State, and local laws, rules, regulations, and ordinances; protect human health and the environment; and address matters including, but not limited to, adequate recordkeeping and accurate tracking and documentation of the collection, transportation, reuse, and recycling or disposal of discarded packaging products within the State.
"Non-participating producer" means a producer who is not a participant in a packaging product stewardship plan adopted and administered by a producer responsibility organization pursuant to this act.
"Packaging product" means any product or material designed and used for the containment, protection, handling, delivery, or presentation of another product, including, but not limited to, a food or beverage item, and that is sold, offered for sale, imported, or distributed in the State. "Packaging product" includes: primary packaging that constitutes a sales unit at the point of purchase; secondary packaging that is used to group other products for multiunit sale or is intended to brand or display another product; tertiary packaging that is used either for the transportation and distribution of another product directly to the consumer or for the protection of the product during transport; service packaging, including carry-out bags, bulk goods bags, take-out bags, home delivery food service packaging, and prescription bottles, which are designed and intended to be filled at the point of sale; beverage containers; ancillary elements that are attached to another product and that serve a packaging function; and any other product, whether constituted of paper, plastic, glass, metal, a mixture thereof, or any other material, which serves a packaging function.
"Packaging product stewardship plan" or "stewardship plan" means the plan developed pursuant to section 6 of this act, and which provides for the environmentally sound life-cycle management, by participating producers, of packaging products that are sold, offered for sale, imported, or distributed by such producers in this State.
"Participating producer" means a producer who is a named participant in a producer responsibility organizations packaging product stewardship plan approved pursuant to section 7 of this act.
"Producer" means the producer of packaging as follows:
(1) For items sold in a packaging product at a physical retail location in the State:
(a) if the item is sold in a packaging product under the manufacturers own brand or is sold in a packaging product that lacks identification of a brand, the producer is the person that manufactures the packaged item;
(b) if the item is manufactured by a person other than the brand owner, the producer is the person that is the licensee of the brand or trademark under which the packaged item is used in