117 Organizations Urge New York Lawmakers to Reject Plastic Burning
For immediate release: December 19, 2022
Contact: Judith Enck, Beyond Plastics – JudithEnck@Bennington.edu
(Albany, NY) On the eve of a new legislative session starting in January, more than 117 New York organizations called on the New York State Legislature to reject state legislation that promotes the burning of plastics, also known as “chemical recycling.” These processes, including gasification, pyrolysis, and solvolysis, are being promoted nationwide by the petrochemical industry as “chemical recycling” or the Orwellian name “advanced recycling.” It is neither advanced nor recycled. Click here to read the letter they delivered.
The 117 organizations urged state legislators not to support or sponsor legislation that would promote chemical recycling in New York State. Earlier this year, Senator Mannion (D-Syracuse) and Assemblymember Hyndman (D-Queens) introduced bills to promote plastic burning (S7891 and A9495). The Mannion /Hyndman bill does two things. First, it would regulate chemical recycling facilities as manufacturing, not solid waste facilities - potentially making them eligible for taxpayer subsidies. Second, the legislation would exempt these facilities from permitting and regulatory requirements applicable to solid waste facilities and incinerators.
Neither bill passed in the State Legislature in 2022, despite heavy support from the chemical and plastics industries.
We strongly support recycling and urge everyone to keep recycling paper, cardboard, metal, glass and some limited plastics. However, the vast majority of plastics are not recyclable—the U.S. plastic recycling rate is just 5% according to the Department of Energy. In light of the clear failure of most plastics recycling over many decades, the plastics industry is now promoting so-called ‘chemical recycling’—which primarily means melting plastics down to create fossil fuels," said Judith Enck, former EPA Regional Administrator and President of Beyond Plastics.
“Chemical recycling” is a marketing strategy to convince policymakers that plastics are recyclable, but most plastics are not. It is an umbrella term for a suite of polluting technologies that attempt to turn plastic into fossil fuel or break it down into its chemical components. In practice, most chemical recycling facilities turn waste into fuel. It involves a two-step process that superheats and boils plastics down into gasses or chemicals or tars or oils, and toxins.
“New York can strike a blow against fossil fuels by resisting false solutions to plastic pollution,” said Eric Weltman, a Brooklyn-based senior organizer with Food & Water Watch. “The real solution to plastic pollution is to reduce the production of plastics. New York must continue to stand up to the oil and gas industry by rejecting so-called ‘chemical recycling’.”
“Chemical recycling should have no place in the State of New York and it is disappointing that Senator Mannion and Assemblymember Hyndman have introduced these terrible bills in the 2022 legislative session. We call on New York lawmakers not to co-sponsor this legislation in the new year,” Enck continued.
Twenty states have adopted similar laws. This opens the door to new sources of toxic pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
"We can't waste precious time to avoid climate catastrophe on greenwashing. Reducing plastic production and use should be the priority, and we call on the legislature to fight for real solutions for a livable future. Marginalized communities are already feeling the health effects of plastic pollution toxins; chemical recycling would only make the problem worse,“ said Meredith Faltin, Queens Climate Project Steering Committee Member.
Plastic waste has become one of the biggest environmental, health, and water quality challenges of the century. A 2021 report from the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine put reducing the production of plastic as the highest priority for stemming ocean plastic pollution. Yet instead of decreasing the production of plastic from fossil fuels, production is rapidly increasing in the U.S. New plastic production facilities that will produce millions of tons of single-use plastics are being built each year, potentially locking us into plastic pollution and climate change for decades to come.
Instead of supporting false solutions to the plastic pollution crisis, it is imperative that the lawmakers take action on plastic reduction, as they have with the statewide bans on single-use plastic bags and polystyrene. State leaders have an opportunity to pass a strong packaging reduction bill that should cut plastic packaging by 50% over ten years in the upcoming 2023 legislative session.
"As a small publisher we work hard to avoid using plastic - no shrink wrap for our calendars and avoiding plastic bags for products. We need to shift our entire production and disposal system as a state, and as a nation, away from the use of these environmentally-destructive materials. We need New York State to step up and pass legislation to reduce the use of plastics and other chemicals," said Andy Mager, Social Movements Liaison for Syracuse Cultural Workers.
Supporting “chemical recycling” will not solve our plastic pollution crisis - only prolong it - and would continue to pollute low-income communities and communities of color, while increasing climate pollution and making it harder for New York to meet its own climate change goals. Lawmakers should work to ensure that these polluting projects are not welcomed in New York.
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