Join Climate Action Now, Beyond Plastics, Mothers Out Front, Sure We Can, and our co-sponsors to learn about this critical legislation and TAKE ACTION to pass strong packaging reduction. Register here for a hour-long action on Wednesday, May 22 at 12pm ET.
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) AND The Bigger Better Bottle Bill (S.237c/A.6353a).
The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act 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
The Bigger Better Bottle Bill will:
Reduces single-use bottles by 25% by 2030
Requires beverage companies to ensure their single-use deposit bottles are recycled at a rate of 90% by 2030
Increase the redemption rate by raising the refundable deposit to ten cents, which will motivate more people to redeem their bottles
Divert billions of bottles from the waste stream by putting a deposit on more containers
Support thousands of marginalized workers and small businesses
Why are these bills 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) and the Bigger Better Bottle Bill (S.237c/A.6353a) will put responsibility for this growing problem where it belongs -- with the producers – and finally address the root cause of plastic pollution!
We need all hands on deck to urge their elected representatives to pass these bills 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.
About Our Featured Guests
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.
Ryan Castalia is an advocate and artist who currently serves as Executive Director of Sure We Can, New York’s only nonprofit directly serving canners—the folks who collect bottles and cans to earn income. Using approaches learned through the nonprofit world, activism, experimental theatre practice, and from the community of canners he serves, Ryan seeks to create the conditions for a more compassionate and sustainable world to emerge.
Keiko Niccolini is a communications and strategy leader currently fighting plastic pollution through public and private partnerships, programs and systems solutions.
About Our Sponsors
Beyond Plastic's mission is to end plastic pollution everywhere.
Alliance of Independent Recyclers NYC (AIR-NYC)’s mission is to create an independent context where canners can elect their own leaders, choose their own priorities, and articulate and advocate for their needs and concerns, which have been marginalized for decades, to institutions and individuals with the power to implement constructive change.
Mothers Out Front is a dynamic group of dedicated moms and community members working toward climate justice for our children’s future.
New York Public Interest Research Group is a non-profit organization that advocates for environmental, consumer, and social justice issues in New York State.
Only One is a US-based nonprofit building a global, active supporter base to amplify and accelerate the work of partner organizations across the ocean sector.
Sure We Can is a non-profit recycling center, community space and sustainability hub in Brooklyn where canners–our neighbors who collect cans and bottles from the streets to make a living–come together with the broader community. Our mission is to support the local community, particularly its most marginalized residents, through social inclusion, environmental awareness and economic empowerment.
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. CANdoers have sent over 1,200,000 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.
