ATTENTION NEW YORKERS! URGENT!
Some of New York’s biggest consumer brands are also the world’s largest plastic polluters. It's a familiar story: polluters keep the profits and leave the mess for taxpayers to clean up. We have a chance to change this in New York State, but we need to make our voices loud and clear so that state lawmakers address the waste crisis NOW. We need YOUR help to seize the moment by helping us pass the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act (S.4246b/A.5322b). This bill will:
Reduce plastic packaging in New York by 50% in 12 years
Improve recycling of materials, so they are actually being made into new packaging, instead of going to the landfill
Get toxic chemicals OUT of packaging - like PFOA, formaldehyde, bisphenols, pthalates, benzene, and heavy metals
Make sure packaging is truly recycled - meaning companies can’t use toxic processes like “chemical recycling” or incineration and count it toward recycling
Make companies pay to clean up their packaging waste, by reimbursing municipalities for waste management and investing in recycling infrastructure
Why is this bill critical to pass in 2024? An average of 6.8 million tons of packaging waste is produced each year in New York, constituting 40% of the total waste stream. Most of this packaging is sent to landfills, burned in incinerators, or ends up as litter on our streets and beaches, and particulates in our lungs.
New York City taxpayers alone currently pay nearly half a billion dollars to export NYC waste to other communities to deal with, like the Seneca Meadows Landfill in the Finger Lakes, the Niagara Falls Covanta incinerator, and the Newark, NJ incinerator. 33 billion pounds of plastic pollution enters the ocean each year worldwide, the equivalent of 1-2 garbage trucks dumped into the ocean every minute.
In 2020, 35.7 million tons of plastic was made in the United States and plastic production is slated to double in the next 20 years, with most of it being manufactured in communities of color in Louisiana, Texas, and Appalachia. These facilities are on track to produce more greenhouse gas emissions than coal plants by 2030. Plastic production is a major environmental justice, climate change, and human health problem.
Plastic waste persists in the environment for centuries, harming wildlife and breaking down into microplastics that disrupt the food chain and enter human bodies. Microplastics have been found in human blood, lungs, breast milk, and the human placenta. Microplastics have been found in the air we breathe and the water we drink.
When burned in incinerators or processed in chemical recycling facilities, plastic waste releases toxic chemicals. Only 5-6% of plastic is actually recycled and it is often downcycled rather than being turned back into products or materials of equal value. The cost of disposal, litter clean-up, and recycling is currently shouldered by taxpayers, not by the companies that make packaging decisions.
Enough!
The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act (S.4246b/A.5322b) will put responsibility for this growing problem where it belongs -- with the producers. It will save tax dollars, reduce packaging, and ban certain toxic chemicals, leading to improved public health.
We need all hands on deck to urge their elected representatives to pass this bill before it’s too late.
Join us, the leaders of Beyond Plastics, our co-sponsors, concerned citizens plus special guests from across the state to learn about this critical legislation and TAKE ACTION to pass strong packaging reduction. Register here.
About Our Featured Guest
Judith Enck is the President of Beyond Plastics and a Bennington College faculty member. Prior to founding Beyond Plastics, Judith was appointed by President Obama to serve as EPA regional administrator for New York, eight Indian Nations in New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands.
Nyah Estevez is an environmental advocate and grassroots organizer with a degree in Political Science from SUNY New Paltz. She has worked on a variety of different environmental justice issues through The Farmworker Law Project at the Legal Aid Society of Mid-New York and NYPIRG’s Environmental Protection Campaign.
About Our Sponsors
Beyond Plastic's mission is to end plastic pollution everywhere.
Only One harnesses the power of collective action to tackle the entire life cycle of plastics, from production to pollution, and move us toward a plastic-free future.
Surfrider Foundation is dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of the world’s ocean, waves, and beaches, for all people, through a powerful activist network.
Mothers Out Front organizes mothers to ensure a healthy climate for all children by transforming unjust systems.
Climate Action Now is the creator and publisher of Climate Action Now, the leading app for citizen climate advocacy. App users take exponentially more action than users of conventional climate advocacy tools. The average app user takes 10 actions a day. In the last two years, CAN app users have sent over 1,100,000 messages to political and business leaders demanding climate action.
About Our Action Parties
An Action Party is an online event that packs valuable information and concrete action into a 60-minute venue.
Each Action Party has an environment-related topic and a featured guest who is an expert in that topic. We begin with a 20-minute presentation by the featured guest, followed by 20 minutes of Q&A, and then 20 minutes of optional action-taking with the Climate Action Now app. The actions have been prepared in advance to help participants take the most impactful action in the shortest period of time. During the action segment, the party's moderator sets a goal for the number of actions to be taken and shows participants their progress towards that goal in real-time with an online, automated goal tracker. Participants can socialize during the action segment.
Action parties are free and open to all who seek a more just and sustainable world, but we welcome donations to help us continue our mission of creating a just and liveable planet for all.
How to Get the Climate Action Now App
If you want to participate in the action-taking segment, you can get the FREE Climate Action Now app by scanning the QR code below with your phone's camera OR by searching for "Climate Action Now" in your app store and downloading it to your phone. The app is currently available to users in the United States only.
