Call for Action for New York Legislators to Address Growing Plastics Waste Problem
New York is drowning in a sea of plastic waste. The author notes that 6.8 million tons of plastic packaging waste are produced in NY State each year, making up a staggering 40 percent of all garbage. Plastics are also finding their way into our bodies at the equivalent of one credit card’s worth per week.
| 12 Apr 2024 | 04:11
Nothing tastes better in plastic.
I’ll take my champagne in a glass flute, give me a can for my beer, a glass bottle for my soda, or a carton for my juice.
We buy beverages and packaged food in plastic because that’s how it’s sold to us. We use it once, discard it AND we are each consuming a credit card worth of plastic every WEEK as a result. Furthermore, recent evidence shows plastic is causing heart and health problems and is found in human placentas. Unlike glass, metal, and paper, plastic is NOT recyclable. In fact, this year’s Earth Day theme is Planet vs. Plastic.
New York has a plastic problem. As the fourth largest state in the country, our state can make an enormous impact by curbing plastic production and use. An average of 6.8 million tons of packaging waste is produced each year in New York, constituting 40 percent of the total waste stream. Most of this packaging is sent to landfills, burned in incinerators, or winds up polluting our streets and parks and beaches, with much of it getting into rivers and then the Atlantic Ocean. The newly released movie, “Plastic People,” highlights the grim reality of the health implications and the shocking fact that 1.5B plastic bottles of water are sold every day.
Our state legislators have a responsible solution at their fingertips: The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act, if passed, would require big companies selling products in New York to cut plastic packaging by 50 percent over the next 12 years. The bill, introduced by Senator Pete Harckham and Assembly member Deborah Glick, would also address plastic’s human health impacts by phasing out toxic chemicals currently used to package the food and drinks we consume. And it would not allow the plastic industry’s latest false solution called chemical recycling, to count as real recycling. Your recent article, New Yorkers are Recycling Less, cites that this bill could save DSNY $150M a year!
It is time to make the polluters pay. In 2022, New York City taxpayers spent $448 million to export the state’s waste to the Finger Lakes and to out-of-state incinerators and landfills. This bill would transfer the cost of managing packaging waste to the companies that create it, rather than the taxpayers.
To quote Taylor Swift, “You won’t remember all my champagne problems,” if we don’t fix our plastic problem. We need Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins to bring this bill to the floor for a vote and it will pass. We have no time to waste.
Kristin Shevis, a Gramercy Park resident, is a constituent of Beyond Plastics, a non-profit organization that is working to reduce single-use plastic packaging in the US.