Trenton fails to apply for recycling grant, gets no share of $14M funding pot
TRENTON >> Here we go again.
The City of Trenton failed to apply for free money, becoming one of the few municipalities in New Jersey to miss out on a lucrative recycling grant.
The state Department of Environmental Protection on Wednesday announced it was awarding $14.3 million in grants to further enhance recycling efforts statewide. Most Garden State communities received a cut of the funding, but Trenton received no share because it did not enter the sweepstakes.
“Trenton did not apply for any funding,” DEP spokesperson Caryn Shinske confirmed Wednesday. “They did not apply for any of the municipal tonnage grant funding that was available for 2016 recycling numbers.”
The failure to apply rests with former Trenton Mayor Eric Jackson, who also failed to apply for 2018 Municipal Aid grants that could have netted the city tens of thousands of dollars in funds for road improvements.
The current administration of Mayor Reed Gusciora provided a different spin on the facts.
“This particular grant Trenton is not eligible for,” city spokesperson Santiago Melli-Huber said of the DEP’s recycling tonnage grant. “The county handles recycling for the city. The city doesn’t have its recycling program. However, the mayor does want to re-establish a recycling program.”
The Trentonian, however, has reviewed DEP’s disbursement of recycling tonnage grants and found that the city previously received the grant even after disbanding its recycling operations in 2004. The city received $7,329.22 in 2005 Recycling Tonnage Grants after famously outsourcing its recycling program to Mercer County, data show.
Trenton received $31,134.26 in 2015 Recycling Tonnage Grants, according to state data.
DEP’s official reason for Trenton not receiving a recycling grant this year is Trenton’s failure to apply for it. The Gusciora administration, meanwhile, says the city is not eligible for the grant but that the mayor wants to re-establish a capital city recycling program. Gusciora in recent weeks said his administration is pursuing new public and private grant funding opportunities.
Trenton adopted the Mercer County Recycling Program as its official municipal recycling program for residential and commercial recycling back when Doug Palmer served as mayor in 2004. City officials at the time said the shared services agreement would save the city money.
Part of the savings came from the administration terminating Tony Mack from his former position as Trenton’s recycling coordinator. Mack eventually won Trenton’s mayoral election in 2010 but got booted from office in 2014 after a jury convicted him of federal extortion, bribery, mail fraud and wire fraud for conspiring to accept $119,000 in bribes.
If Gusciora re-establishes a recycling program, it would likely occur later into his four-year term rather than sooner. Trenton City Council last month approved a resolution authorizing and approving a shared services agreement between the city and the Mercer County Improvement Authority continuing the city’s participation in Mercer County’s curbside recycling program.
Under the resolution, Trenton will pay over $1 million to have Mercer County collect curbside recyclables in the capital city this year. The costs will slightly increase in the years ahead if Trenton chooses to renew and continue the shared services agreement through 2023, according to the resolution.
DEP recycling tonnage grants are funded through a $3 per-ton surcharge on trash disposed at solid waste facilities statewide. The DEP then allocates that money back to municipalities based on how much recycling each community reports accomplishing during a particular calendar year, the department said Wednesday in a news release.
Any New Jersey municipality that operates a locally funded recycling collection program is eligible to receive recycling tonnage grants, according to information posted on DEP’s website. The language suggests Trenton is ineligible for the grant due to its lack of an in-house recycling program, but history suggests Trenton may have still received some money if the Jackson administration had applied for the grant last year.
Every other Mercer County municipality has been awarded the grant this year based upon their 2016 recycling efforts. Some of the towns are receiving token amounts, but Hamilton Township is receiving over $150,000 in DEP recycling grants as the top beneficiary in Mercer County. Meanwhile, Robbinsville has been awarded nearly $80,000 and Princeton is receiving nearly $72,000 in state recycling grants this year.
Trenton is one of the nine municipalities in New Jersey to not receive a recycling tonnage grant this year, according to DEP data. Towns must apply for the grant by April 30 to be considered for it.