The New York State Legislature returns Monday, and environmentalists hope legislators will act on a series of measures to combat climate change and clean up pollution.
Among other measures, they are trying once again to get the New York Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act passed before the Legislature adjourns for the year in June.
The measure would cut in half all the plastic packaging that is now used.
Judith Enck, a former regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency who now heads Bennington College’s Beyond Plastics, said plastics recycling has been an “abysmal failure,” with only 6% of packaging and single-use products being recycled.
Enck said the bill’s goals are incremental: It calls for a 10% reduction in plastic packaging after three years, a 20% reduction after five years, a 30% reduction after eight years and a 40% reduction after 10 years.
"We get to 50% reduction after 12 years,” Enck said. “It's a glide path, and it is a very reasonable schedule. Big companies know how to innovate when the law requires them to do that.”
The bill also bans toxic chemicals in plastic packaging and imposes a fee on producers of the materials.
In addition, it makes illegal a form of plastics recycling known as chemical recycling. That process heats the plastic waste to a high temperature and converts it into a form of fossil fuel.
Many county leaders around the state support the bill, including Ulster County Executive Jen Metzger, who is a former state senator.
Metzger said it would help counties manage increasingly expensive waste disposal.
“It will save upstate taxpayers as much as $150 million a year,” Metzger said.
She also said the fees would provide local governments with “desperately needed revenue” to upgrade local recycling and reuse programs.
“Critically, it shifts the cost from our communities to the corporations that are responsible for generating (the waste),” Metzger said. “Which is the just and fair approach to addressing the plastics and waste crisis.”
The bill has 80 co-sponsors in the state Assembly and 34 in the state Senate. The environmental committee chairs in both houses back the bill, and it’s been approved in their committees. But it remains stuck in higher-ranking committees it must pass through to make it to the floor.
Enck said while the public also backs the idea, the plastics and chemical industries oppose it and have been fighting behind the scenes to kill or weaken the legislation.
“There is ferocious industry opposition,” Enck said. “And that is what we are up against in Albany this year.”
In a statement, the head of America’s Plastic Makers, which is part of the American Chemistry Council, said the group is opposed to the bill in its current form.
Ross Eisenberg said the proposal “misses the mark and will have unintended consequences” by eliminating packaging that he said keeps people safe.
He said the measure also closes off “innovative solutions” like chemical recycling and would result in more plastics ending up in landfills.
