A spirited debate broke out on the floor of the state Senate Friday over a bill that would force big businesses to cut back on the plastic they use to package products if they want to continue doing business in New York.
Republican State Sen. Pamela Helming of Canandaigua ticked off a list of items — many New York made — that would be impacted if the measure passed. Fruit snacks, yogurt, cream cheese, Lunchables, Tater Tots.
“So many of these products are products that busy parents rely on,” Helming told colleagues. “They’re products they know their kids will eat. They rely on them for the convenience and the cost.”
She questioned why New York was advancing a program that would heap costly regulations onto companies, forcing them to move their business to a state that is “pro-business and pro-growth.”
The measure’s chief sponsor, Westchester County Democrat Pete Harckham, countered that it was unlikely big businesses would willingly pull out of one of the nation’s most profitable markets.
And, he noted, hard-to-recycle plastics were crowding the state’s landfills and incinerators, burdening communities.
“We have a massive waste crisis,” Harckham said. “Our landfills are closing. We have ten waste incinerators in New York State…I have one of these in my district in Peekskill, NY. Hundreds of diesel-belching trucks going through the community on a daily basis. That is not a helpful solution.”
The measure, known as the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act, prevailed on a 37-23 vote in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
Press releases flew.
Beyond Plastics president Judith Enck said the passage marked “a pivotal step in tackling plastic pollution and shifting the financial burden from the public to producers.”
All that was waiting was an Assembly vote.
And then….everyone just went home.
The Assembly went into recess and never voted. New York’s chance to join five others states with plastics packaging legislation was scuttled.
It was an anti-climactic ending for a bill that was at the top of environmentalists’ wish-list in the waning days of the 2024 legislative session.
Ultimately, it may have been upended by Gov. Kathy Hochul’s 11th-hour decision to pause congestion pricing — the MTA’s controversial plan to toll most drivers $15 to enter Manhattan’s Central Business District below 60th Street.
“It was looking positive, but we did get some early warning the day before that there were some issues with some of the members,” said Blair Horner, the executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, which supported the bill.
“That requires face to face interactions with a number of people and you can’t do that if they’re not around because they’re in closed-door conference trying to figure out what to do by congestion pricing,” Horner said.
Assembly Democrats say the issue is not dead. “Reducing unnecessary plastic waste is an important issue for many of our members and it will be something we continue to work on,” Assembly spokesman Michael Whyland said Monday.
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Opposition created confusion
The bill’s opponents targeted the potential for higher consumer costs if the measure prevailed.
The American Chemistry Council, a trade group representing plastics producers like Procter and Gamble and ExxonMobil, conducted an ad blitz in the local newspapers of bill sponsors.
“Radical Activists are about to ruin summer BBQ Season,” an ad targeting Harckham read. “Will lead to fewer choices in products like cheese slices, burgers and hot dogs, and chips by banning their packaging.”
Ads like those raised questions among members, Horner said.
“It was a combination of the monkey wrench the governor threw into the session, combined with the ability of our opponents to create enough confusion about the proposal that the support softened,” Horner said.
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What would the bill have done if passed?
Harckham spent the past year meeting with dozens of interested parties to fashion a bill that would quiet the most strident opposition.
The revenue threshold for plastics producers covered by the bill was raised from $1 million to $5 million after farmers and small business owners balked.
The moved satisfied nursery and greenhouse producers as well as small craft beverage makers, but dairy farmers continued to rail that it would make it more expensive to produce food in New York. The New York Farm Bureau joined the Business Council of New York State in opposing the measure.
The bill targets companies that produce at least two million tons of plastic packing and single-use plastics annually.
The final draft included a major concession. Businesses would have to reduce the amount of plastic they use in packaging by 30% in 12 years, instead of 50%.
Landfills, incinerators overflowing
The bill was centered largely on keeping single-use plastics — straws, utensils, plastic bags and food packaging — from entering the waste stream in the first place.
Just 6% of plastic ends up getting recycled, a record anti-plastic advocates like Enck have termed “an abysmal failure.”
The rest ends up in landfills and incinerators, a major source of the greenhouse gases the state is trying to reduce as it pursues a slate of clean-energy goals.
Over 80% of the state’s 18 million tons of waste goes to landfills and incinerators, according to a 2023 report by the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Plastics accounted for 14% (2.5 million tons) of that total, the third highest percentage after paper (32% or 5.7 million tons) and organics (23% or 4.1 million tons) which includes food scraps.
County and city-run recycling centers lent their voice to the cause. Their costs to recycle paper and plastic have surged in recent years after China limited the amount of recyclables it would take in.
The DEC report pegged New York City’s recycling tab at $458 million in 2021, Syracuse at nearly $3 million and North Tonawanda $1.2 million.
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The new measure would have forced plastics producers to kick in funding for municipal recycling programs. New York City, which produces most of the state’s waste, stood to receive $150 million.
It also calls on plastics producers to reduce the use of toxins like PFAS and heavy metals.
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Bottle Bill update fails too
It wasn’t the only recycling-related measure that failed this session.
Bills that would double the nickel deposit for beer, soda and water containers and increase the 3.5-cent handling fee private bottle redemption centers get to recycle containers also failed to gain traction.
A bill sponsored by State Sen. Rachel May would have upped the per-container handling fee to six cents.
In the last days of the session, a proposal to increase the fee by a penny failed, angering redemption centers who in recent weeks staged rallies in Albany to make their case for a raise.
“They want to give us one penny after 15 years of increased expenses without a raise?” said Jade Eddy, the owner of a redemption center in Queensbury. “That’s just downright wrong.”
She said Albany’s unwillingness to throw the industry a lifeline means many small businesses will shut their doors.
“Everybody is mad as hell and it’s not just us,” Eddy said. “The customers recognize that if the redemption centers are gone, they have to return to the store system. And they understand that stores have limitations on their volume, they have limitations on their brands. It’s going to require them to make several trips to several different stores when they can just come to a redemption center and do it all in one.”
Opposition came from the American Beverage Association, representing bottlers and distributors of non-alcoholic beverages. The group said the ten-cent deposit would add $2.40 to a 24-pack of beverages.
