ICYMI: As Chemical and Plastic Industry Spend Dirty Money, Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act Gains Momentum
Buffalo News Editorial Board: Bill That Has the Teeth to Address New York's Plastic Problem Should Pass
For Immediate Release: June 2 2025
Contact: Marissa Solomon, marissa@pythiapublic.com, 734-330-0807
ALBANY, N.Y. — As the final weeks of the New York state legislative session begin, the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act (S1464/A1749) continues to gain momentum despite the plastics and chemical companies spending millions lobbying against the bill. Over the weekend and after the Senate passed the legislation, the Buffalo News editorialized in favor of it, calling for passage of the bill with teeth.
“Plastic pollution is a global crisis. It’s destroying ecosystems, including Western New York’s precious waterways, and undermining human health. Governments are finally paying attention to the evidence of this and New York State is one of them. The Legislature is on the verge of passing a bill that will address the root causes of New York’s plastic problem, but it will need to overcome fear-mongering spread by special interests before that happens.
It’s not hard to find the motivation. Given the money being spent on lobbying efforts by the American Chemistry Council, which numbers giant corporations such as Exxon Mobil and Shell among its members, it’s no wonder some New York’s Republican legislators are fiercely denouncing the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act, a bill that attacks plastic pollution the only way that works – at the source.”
Read the full editorial here and below.
The American Chemistry Council and its allies’ deceptive and misleading campaign against the legislation has been a theme of this legislative session. In his closing remarks before the legislation passed the Senate on May 28, prime sponsor Senator Pete Harckham said:
“I think [our founding fathers] would be appalled by the amount of money that has come from special interests to oppose this bill. In my seven years here, I have never seen anything like it — over $2 million spent to oppose this bill. This is Washington-style money. And this is our public health; this is our kids. We should be appalled. The same folks who brought us DDT and paraquat and Agent Orange and PFAS are now saying, here in New York, we can’t protect our kids from the harmful impacts of chemicals.”
In a series of three stories, NY Focus detailed the American Chemistry Council’s campaign against the bill. Read the stories:
Chemistry Industry Redoubles Campaign Against New York Waste Bill
Ad Campaign Funded by Chemical Industry Skirted Campaign Finance Rules
As Albany Debates Plastics Crackdown, Industry Pushes Softer Alternative
In recent weeks, the industry’s campaign against the bill has taken a particularly troubling turn, targeting “nonwhite lawmakers in particular,” as reported by the Albany Times-Union. Faith leaders representing diverse communities responded to this tactic in a letter to the Assembly last week, writing:
“As faith leaders serving a diversity of communities of New York, we write to you with a sense of urgency, conviction, and deep concern. We stand united in our opposition to the tactics currently being employed by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and their corporate allies to manipulate, deceive, and mislead vulnerable communities in order to protect the profits of billion-dollar corporations, even at the expense of our health, environment, and well-being.”
To continue pushing back against this manipulative lobbying, national environmental justice activist Sharon Lavigne will travel from her home in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” to Albany this Wednesday to advocate for the legislation. More information to come.
Buffalo News Editorial
The Editorial Board: Bill that has the teeth to address New York's plastic problem should pass
Plastic pollution is a global crisis. It’s destroying ecosystems, including Western New York’s precious waterways, and undermining human health. Governments are finally paying attention to the evidence of this and New York State is one of them. The Legislature is on the verge of passing a bill that will address the root causes of New York’s plastic problem, but it will need to overcome fear-mongering spread by special interests before that happens.
It’s not hard to find the motivation. Given the money being spent on lobbying efforts by the American Chemistry Council, which numbers giant corporations such as Exxon Mobil and Shell among its members, it’s no wonder some New York’s Republican legislators are fiercely denouncing the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act, a bill that attacks plastic pollution the only way that works – at the source.
Though business groups have been against the bill from the beginning, it has still progressed in the Legislature. Sponsored by Senator Pete Harckham and Assembly Member Deborah Glick, the Act passed the Senate on Wednesday for the second year in a row, but has yet to reach a vote in the Assembly.
The bill’s premise is simple. Make less single-use plastic. Producers with annual net revenues over $5 million and those responsible for more than two tons of annual packaging waste would be required to reduce their packaging by 10% within three years and 30% within 12 years.
As has been stated ad infinitum – and backed by overwhelming evidence – plastic recycling is not working, with only about 6% of it in the U.S. recycled, according to the Department of Energy.
One of those leading the charge against the bill is North Tonawanda Republican Robert Ortt, who is State Senate minority leader. Ortt takes an approach that it will cost too much money, leading to harm for local plastics manufacturers and higher costs in the supermarket shelves.
The Beyond Plastics organization told The News’ Robert Gavin that the bill would save money – $1.3 billion statewide over 10 years – by reducing costs to both consumers and municipalities that use commercial waste haulers. Disposing of plastic waste is expensive; if there was less of it, those costs would go down.
Of the two opposing claims, only one has a vital, overriding benefit on its side: strengthening New York’s natural environment, reducing waterway pollution and decreasing the amount of microplastics, tiny particles that, though more study is needed, could have human consequences as serious as cancers, lung disease, and birth defects.
The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act is not draconian. It takes an incremental approach, with a 10% reduction by year three, 15% by year five, 20% by year eight, 25% in year 10 and then 30% in year 12, according to Beyond Plastics President Judith Enck. The bill also requires a 75% recycling rate for remaining packaging, prohibits some of the most harmful chemicals used in packaging and prohibits chemical recycling.
It’s reasonable legislation that has teeth, but also gives companies time to re-engineer their approach to packaging and exempts small businesses.
Still, the resistance to this much-needed and long-overdue change is strong, as resistance to change usually is. In a final effort to undermine the legislation, a coalition led by the Business Council, the state’s leading business group, is backing an alternative bill, the Affordable Waste Reduction Act, that says it would hold companies that sell packaged products responsible by setting fees, but it does not have fixed targets for companies to reduce their packaging; doesn’t ban toxic ingredients and seems to allow chemical recycling.
The bill has legislative sponsors, though not widespread support, and is backed by the American Chemistry Council. It’s weak legislation that will do little to nothing to combat New York’s ever-worsening problems with solid waste. Without a timeline, solid goals and attention to toxic chemicals, how could it?
New York needs environmental legislation that really does something. The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act goes beyond lip service to realistically attack the state’s plastic problem. It should pass.
BACKGROUND
The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act (S1464 Harckham/A1749 Glick) will transform the way our goods are packaged. It will dramatically reduce waste and ease the burden on taxpayers by making companies, not consumers, cover the cost of managing packaging. The bill will:
Reduce plastic packaging by 30% incrementally over 12 years;
By 2052, all packaging — including plastic, glass, cardboard, paper, and metal — must meet a recycling rate of 75% (with incremental benchmarks until then);
Prohibit 17 of packaging’s worst toxic chemicals and materials, including all PFAS chemicals, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), lead, and mercury;
Prohibit the harmful process known as chemical recycling to be considered real recycling;
Establish a modest fee on packaging paid by product producers, with new revenue going to local taxpayers; and
Establish a new Office of Inspector General to ensure that companies fully comply with the new law.
A new report from Beyond Plastics "Projected Economic Benefits of the New York Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act" shows how New Yorkers would save $1.3 billion in just one decade after the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act becomes law. These savings would come from the avoided costs of waste management when there’s less waste to manage, and they don’t even include the funds that would be brought in after placing a fee on packaging paid by product producers.
Because the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act would save tax dollars, over 30 localities across the state have passed resolutions urging Albany leaders to pass the bill. The New York City Council passed a resolution in support, and the Mayor’s Office released a memorandum of support in favor of the legislation. More than 300 organizations and businesses — including Beyond Plastics, Hip Hop Caucus, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, League of Women Voters, Environmental Advocates, NYPIRG, Earthjustice, Blueland, and DeliverZero — issued a memo of support stating, “This bill would save tax dollars and position New York as a global leader in reducing plastic pollution.”
Plastics and Climate
Plastic production is warming the planet four times faster than air travel, and it’s only going to get worse with plastic production expected to double in the next 20 years. Plastic is made from fossil fuels and contains 16,000 chemicals, many of them known to be harmful to humans and even more untested for their safety. Most plastics are made out of ethane, a byproduct of fracking. In 2020, plastic’s climate impacts amounted to the equivalent of nearly 49 million cars on the road, according to a conservative estimate by Material Research L3C. And that’s not including the carbon footprint associated with disposing of plastic.
Plastics and Health
Less than 6% of plastic in the United States actually gets recycled, and only 9% of all the plastic waste ever generated, globally, has been recycled. The rest ends up burned at incinerators, buried in landfills, or polluting rivers and the ocean — an estimated 33 billion pounds of plastic enter the ocean every year.
Plastic is being measured everywhere, and microplastics are entering our soil, food, water, and air. Scientists estimate people consume, on average, hundreds of thousands of microplastics per year, and these particles have been found in human placenta, breast milk, stool, blood, lungs, and more.
Scientific research continues to find that the microplastics problem is worse than previously thought: New research in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that microplastics are linked to increased heart attacks, strokes and premature deaths. Another study from Columbia University found that bottled water can contain hundreds of thousands of plastic fragments.
Why Chemical Recycling Isn’t a Solution
Because plastics recycling is a failure, the plastics and petrochemical industries are now pushing a pseudo-solution: chemical recycling, or “advanced recycling.” This is a polluting process that uses high heat or chemicals to turn plastic waste into fossil fuels or feedstocks to produce new plastic products. It’s a dangerous distraction that’s allowing companies to exponentially increase the amount of plastic — and greenhouse gases — they put into the world. Learn more from Beyond Plastics’s report, “Chemical Recycling: A Dangerous Deception.” These New York bills do not ban chemical recycling but simply do not allow chemical recycling to count as real recycling.
About Beyond Plastics
Launched in 2019, Beyond Plastics pairs the wisdom and experience of environmental policy experts with the energy and creativity of grassroots advocates to build a vibrant and effective movement to end plastic pollution. Using deep policy and advocacy expertise, Beyond Plastics is building a well-informed, effective movement seeking to achieve the institutional, economic, and societal changes needed to save our planet and ourselves, from the negative health, climate, and environmental impacts for the production, usage, and disposal of plastics.
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