The New Jersey state Senate Environment and Energy Committee approved legislation co-sponsored by Senators Bob Smith, and Raj Mukherji, which would prohibit food service businesses from providing single-use utensils and condiments, except at the expressed request of a customer.

While food service businesses would still be allowed to stock single-use utensils to distribute upon request, providing unrequested single-use utensils would incur a fine.

The bill also require the establishment of a “Clean Communities Program Fund” for use in financing litter pickup, removal, education, and enforcement programs at the State and local levels, which would be funded in part by fines levied on businesses found to be violating the law.

As per the text of the bill, food service business is defined to mean a “restaurant, café, food truck, vendor station, cafeteria, or any other facility or premises, or section or part thereof, including, but not limited to, a section or part of a grocery store, convenience store, hospital, school, sports arena, entertainment venue, or other similar facility or venue, where meals are prepared and served to customers for immediate consumption thereby on or off the premises, whether on a take-out, eat-in, drive-thru, or delivery basis.”

“Millions of tons of plastics are disposed of every year in this country—most of which ends up in a landfill at best, and into urban areas or the ocean at worst,” said Senator Smith (D-Middlesex/Somerset). “This bill would decrease the amount of litter that ends up in our communities, as well as help to fund a program to clean up the trash that has already made its way into the local environment.”

The bill would also require food service businesses with on-site seating capacity to provide customers with easy to access reusable, washable utensils that may be used thereby while consuming meals on the premises, which are to be returned for the purposes of cleaning and reuse once the meal is completed.

Any non-exempt food service business that violates the bill’s provisions would be liable to a civil penalty of $1,000 for the first offense, $2,500 for the second offense, and $5,000 for the third and each subsequent offense, to be collected through a summary proceeding, and each day on which a violation occurs would constitute a separate and distinct offense.

The bill was advanced in a 3-2 vote.