Dear Senator Smith:

On behalf of the Grocery Manufacturers of America (GMA), I am writing to express our opposition to Senate Bill 2578, scheduled for consideration in the Senate Committee on Environment on Thursday, May 26.

GMA is the world’s largest association of food, beverage and consumer product companies. With U.S. sales of more than $460 billion, GMA members employ more than 2.5 million workers in all 50 states, including over 33,500 employees at 107 locations in New Jersey. The organization applies legal, scientific and political expertise from its member companies to vital food, nutrition and public policy issues affecting the industry. Led by a board of 42 Chief Executive Officers, GMA speaks for food and consumer product manufacturers and sales agencies at the state, federal and international levels on legislative and regulatory issues.

Mandatory recycling content for plastic packaging is an idea with good intentions, but without merit. In an effort to reduce the reliance on virgin plastic for product packaging and create a market for post-consumer recycled plastic packaging, states have looked at requiring a specific percentage of recycling content to be used in plastic packaging. However, there is no technological guarantee that recycled content will not contaminate a food product. Without further research to determine what the acceptable level of recycled content is for food packaging, unsubstantiated government mandates for recycled content are incompatible with government requirements for food safety.

GMA and its members companies support the goal of finding more environmentally efficient uses of our resources. We believe that we can get to the goal much more easily and more readily through a voluntary process guided by public opinion, stake-holder priorities, business benefits and technical knowledge rather than though mandated recycled content.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

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