Just Say NO and Skip the Stuff!
By: JoAnn Gemenden
Executive Director,
NJ Clean Communities Council
The New Jersey Clean Communities Council (NJCCC) is on a mission to inspire business owners and customers alike to join the statewide Skip the Stuff movement.
The outreach campaign focuses on eliminating waste – directly benefiting a company’s bottom line!
Takeout orders commonly include plastic utensils, condiment packets and napkins that often go unused, thrown away or end up as litter. The statistics are grim. Americans dispose of about 40 billion single-use plastic utensils each year.
To tackle these alarming figures, NJCCC is spearheading a statewide outreach effort aimed at changing behaviors. To kick off the campaign, local radio broadcasters featured Skip the Stuff radio ads across New Jersey.
The next strategic step is to leverage our partnership with Downtown New Jersey to amplify this message to the business community. The goal is to teach owners and managers to embrace sustainable practices and save money at the same time.
We can all benefit! Skip the Stuff will make it easier for restaurants and other businesses to Go green and Save green.
This shift is both an environmental and economic win:
- Restaurants save money.
- Customers create less waste.
- Our landfills, waterways and environment benefit.
As a statewide nonprofit organization that’s been tackling litter for nearly 40 years, promoting environmental change is not new – it’s what we do.
NJCCC was entrusted to lead the charge in educating the public about New Jersey’s single use plastics law. Despite the initial struggle in educating consumers, this law is instrumental in changing the litter landscape in our state forever. Since May 4, 2022, when the law was signed, more than 24 billion plastic bags have been kept out of our waterways, parks and neighborhoods.
Other successes include:
- NJCCC oversees the distribution of $27.4 million in clean communities grants to local governments for litter abatement, education and enforcement;
- NJCCC launched the statewide Reusable Bag Resource Center – an easy online tool at LitterFreeNJ.com that helps New Jerseyans donate clean, reusable bags to those in need;
- NJCCC has created videos and public service announcements to help promote awareness of the most common types of preventable litter such as balloons, cigarettes and pet waste.
Please check out these and our many others free resources at LitterFreeNJ.com and njclean.org! Click Here
And remember to just say NO and Skip the Stuff! It’s a win-win step toward a cleaner New Jersey – and it only works if we all work together.
ABOUT THE NEW JERSEY CLEAN COMMUNITIES COUNCIL
New Jersey Clean Communities is a statewide, comprehensive, litter-abatement program created by the passage of the Clean Communities Act in 1986. The Act provides a funding source for the program by placing a tax on fifteen categories of businesses that may produce litter-generating products. The Clean Communities Program Fund generates about $ 20 million each year and is disbursed each year to municipalities (80%), counties (10%), state parks service (10%), and the New Jersey Clean Communities Council, Inc. ($375,000).
