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Lebanon Borough to receive $7,762.47 in recycle grants -

New Jersey’s municipalities and counties are receiving a record $8 million in recycling grants as a result of the state’s new recycling-enhancement law, Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Lisa P. Jackson announced today.

“These grants represent the highest award total during more than 20 years of recycling in New Jersey,” Commissioner Jackson said. “They will be catalysts, giving local governments more incentive than ever to expand recycling programs that are good for the environment by conserving resources and good for local taxpayers by reducing trash disposal costs.”

The Recycling Enhancement Act, signed into law by Gov. Jon Corzine in January, boosts the amount of grant money available to local governments by creating a recycling enhancement fund through a $3-per-ton surcharge on trash taken to solid-waste disposal facilities.

Municipal governments, vital to the success of recycling, receive 60 percent of the money the fund generates to help them enhance outreach and compliance efforts. The balance is awarded to county solid-waste management and household hazardous-waste collection programs, county and state promotional efforts, and recycling research.

The new law recognizes that it will take time for the recycling enhancement fund to become fully self-supporting. As a result, the law allows for an $8 million start-up appropriation from the state’s general fund to be made available as local recycling grants during the program’s first year. The appropriation will be repaid from future money generated by the trash surcharge.