Pass the Package

Have you ever heard of the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act? This amendment to environmental conservation law would require companies who sell, offer to sell, or distribute packaging materials and products to register with a packaging reduction organization. Companies would also be obligated to work with the packaging reduction organizations to develop a packaging reduction and recycling plan.

To break it down even further, this bill would:

Reduces plastic packaging by 50%, gradually over the next 12 years
Reduces pollution in low income communities and/or communities of color (environmental justice communities) where packaging is produced, landfilled and incinerated
Makes packaging safer for all New Yorkers
Save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars
Reinvigorate the state’s recycling system
Reduce greenhouse gas emissions
Doesn’t allow chemical “recycling” to count as recycling

Let’s not forget the key statistics that come into play:

33 billion lbs of plastic waste enters the ocean annually worldwide
$477 million dollars was proposed for NYC waste exports in 2025
Only 5-6% of plastic waste from the state is actually recycled
12% of the state’s overall greenhouse gas emissions
35.7 million tons of plastics was produced in the U.S. alone in 2020

What you can do to help this legislation:

Call Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie
Call Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins
Email your state legislators urging them to vote yes
Email Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins
Write a letter to the editor to your local/regional newspaper

For more information, visit www.beyondplastics.org/nys-packaging-reduction.

Resources:

Memo of Support - https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5eda91260bbb7e7a4bf528d8/t/65a940ea4c2c627a4869bee3/1705591020836/Packaging+Reduction+Act+S4246-a+A5322-a.pdf

Senate Bill S4246A - https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2023/S4246/amendment/A