New York is on the verge of passing a bill that would reduce wasteful single-use packaging by 50%
But we need to get it passed before the legislative session ends this Thursday, June 8. We're running out of time.
Can you help urge New York's legislative leaders to schedule this critical bill for a vote ASAP?
Use this tool to send a message with a click. Your state representative's districts are determined by address. We won't use your address for anything else.
The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act would:
- Require companies to reduce their single-use packaging by 50% in 12 years, with the remaining 50% redesigned to be refillable, reusable or actually recyclable
- Ban a dozen of the most toxic chemicals used in packaging, including PFAs, benzene, toluene, phthalates, bisphenols and heavy metals
- Make companies legally and financially responsible for their pollution and discarded product packaging, instead of leaving taxpayers to foot the bill as we currently do; This would provide much-needed taxpayer relief and funding for New York's municipal recycling and composting programs and infrastructure
Why is single-use packaging such an issue?
- Plastic is a major climate change polluter at every stage of its life cycle. In fact, if plastic were a country it would be the world's fifth largest greenhouse gas polluter.
- 40% of plastic production is to make single-use items that clog our landfills, pollute our air, water and soil when burned in incinerators, or end up littering our environment.
- New York has a whopping 10 municipal waste incinerators, tied with Florida for the most incinerators in any U.S. state. These facilities produce hundreds of thousands of tons of greenhouse gases, air pollution and toxic ash each year. The ash from incinerators is so toxic that it has to be stored in yet another landfill known as a toxic ash dump.
- New York City spends $429 million each year to export roughly 5 million tons of its waste to incinerators and landfills in other states or to the Finger Lakes in upstate NY.
