The Push to Control Plastic Waste in New York: What to Know
Hilary Howard | The New York Times| May 27, 2024
In 2020, the plastic supermarket bag was banned in New York. It is a member of the single-use-plastic family — items that release greenhouse gases when manufactured and, once used, can take years to break down in landfills.
Many more single-use plastic products could go the way of the supermarket bag should state lawmakers approve the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act in early June.
Read on to find out more.
What are single-use plastics?
They are items like wrappers, packaging and food containers that are used once and then discarded. They are mostly made from fossil fuel–based chemicals.
Why not just recycle them?
Many single-use items — especially anything soft or bendable — are a challenge to recycle because of their chemical composition, among other reasons. Anything flimsy like a potato chip bag, a bread bag, a squeezable baby food pouch should go in the trash in New York City. And those plastic bags that some places like food delivery businesses are still allowed to use? They jam up the machines at recycling centers.
All hard, stiff plastics can be recycled in the city, said Joshua Goodman, a spokesman for the Department of Sanitation. Yet, most plastic products still end up in landfills or are incinerated. Both processes produce microplastics that are nearly impossible to remove from the air, ground and water.
Many environmental experts question whether it’s worth it to recycle any plastics, since the process is time-consuming, expensive and can leach toxins. Still, New Yorkers should continue recycling rigid plastic products so they don’t end up in landfills, Mr. Goodman said.
Why is recycling plastic so difficult?
Some 16,000 chemicals can be used in plastic production.
“The amount of plastics that are recycled is very low because there are so many different types of plastics, different colors and thousands of chemicals used to make them,” said Judith Enck, a former official for the Environmental Protection Agency and the president of Beyond Plastics, an advocacy group that is actively supporting the bill. “They all need to be sorted and cannot be recycled together.”
How would this bill limit the production of plastics?
The packaging reduction bill aims to reduce the use of plastic packaging by 50 percent over 12 years by requiring the companies that produce it to either find more sustainable options or pay a fee, which would go to municipalities across the state. The fee hasn’t been determined yet.
“The disposal of plastic packaging is costing municipalities and therefore taxpayers a great deal of money unnecessarily and that should be shared by producers, which is the incentive for them to not have unnecessary packaging,” said Assemblywoman Deborah J. Glick, a Manhattan Democrat and a sponsor of the bill.
How would the money raised by the fees be used?
The collected fees would be earmarked for municipalities’ recycling and waste disposal costs as well as infrastructure that cuts down on waste, such as public water fountains that can refill water bottles. Officials estimated that New York City could see as much as $150 million.
Would this law do anything else?
Out of the thousands of chemicals used in plastic production, 19 deemed among the most toxic would be prohibited from use in packaging, including formaldehyde and heavy metals.
