SO Disposal- NJ Recycling Tax added to bill

I think we are being over-billed. SOD has added a 3% Recycling Tax to our bill this pay period. 

The law charges a waste facility $3 per ton. By charging me (a once a week user) 3% ($1.86), they appear to be passing through a fee for over 1/2 ton to me every 2 months, unless I am missing something.

I called SOD and got a defensive answer about inflation and having to pay this since 2007...the law was not effective until April 1, 2008.

Is the $1.86 per month or per quarter?   

This law was never fair the way it was written.   I don't know if anything has changed since my days of being the Recycling Coordinator but here is what I remember on this law.

The law requires all waste companies/government agencies to pay $3 per ton of trash disposed of at any disposal facilities. I do not recall if bulk waste was assessed the same $3 per ton or if it was just type 10 waste.  This money was to be put in a separate fund to be used for recycling issues only.  Such as buying equipment,  printing out educational brochures, the promotion of an existing or new recycling program, disposal fees, etc. 

The state came up with a formula on how the money was to be shared, of course the state took the biggest portion. 

The inequity comes in when they try to reconcile the fund.  Here is how it works - if you are a municipality who picks up their own garbage or pays a contractor to collect the waste but you pay the disposal fees, then you were given back the fees collected from you during the course of the year.  So that drops the fund significantly before anything is handed out.  Now if you are a company like S.O. Disposal or Waste Industries you have to pay the fee but neither you nor the agency you collect the waste from gets that money back.  

The state takes the biggest piece of the pie, then the counties,  and the rest is divided among the 500 plus municipalities in NJ.  Not quite the way everyone saw it working out when we agreed to it. 

Bottom line ......towns like Maplewood and South Orange get screwed.  Not sure it still works like this but that was how it started out.