NY bills address waste plastics

Assigning responsibility, upping deposits

By Angie Hund | Manor Ink

Sullivan County, NY – In the past year, New York State has introduced two environmental bills that assign responsibility for disposing of the mountains of waste plastic to the companies that produce the packaging rather than pushing it onto everyday consumers.

Recently, Manor Ink spoke with Rebekah Creshkoff, a volunteer at Beyond Plastics, a nationwide project that pairs the experience of environmental policy experts with advocates to build an effective movement to end plastic pollution. Creshkoff is a former corporate writer and has retreated to the Catskills to focus on environmentalism. She started the Project Safe Flight in New York City Park and has taken Judith Inks’ class on Beyond Plastic Pollution, which is offered at Bennington College.

Reducing the amount of plastic

The first bill, titled the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act, creates standards for packing. Like our environmental standards for cars, this bill holds companies responsible for their unethical packaging practices. Introduced by former Senator Tom Harkin, the bill, numbered 54246A, has already been adopted into law. Its first requirement is a 50-percent reduction in single-use packaging over 12 years, with every two years seeing a significant reduction in plastic manufacturing.

The remaining packaging must be able to be recycled effectively and truly. If not, packaging companies are charged a fee based on how difficult it is to recycle their packaging. Beyond Plastics and other environmental committees are keen to encourage engineers to come up with creative new ways, or even old-fashioned ways, to package products.

According to Creshkoff, the end goal, or “gold standard,” is to get to a point where plastic is boycotted in favor of a reuse-and-refill method. Major companies like Pepsi, Coca-Cola and Nestle, which claim a huge chunk of the beverage market, are condemned for being the world’s greatest manufacturers of unrecyclable plastic. The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act also requires an investigation into the proliferation of microplastics and a reduction of toxins in food packaging. Neurotoxins such as formaldehyde, vinyl chloride, other heavy metals and antimony are found in single-use water bottles. This bill would ultimately target the plastic consumption of the entire state, affecting larger areas like New York City and the Hudson Valley.

Expanding the bottle deposit concept

The second bill, named the Bigger Better Bottle Bill, is an adaptation of the state’s 40-year-old Returnable Container Act. As we all know, this mandated a five-cent return deposit on carbonated bottled and canned beverages. The Bigger Better Bottle Bill applies that policy to other beverages such as juices, alcohol, wine, sports drinks, and iced teas, increasing the deposit from five to ten cents.

“Statistically, states with higher deposit rates have higher redemption rates,” said Creshkoff.

Producers, not surprisingly, oppose both bills. They claim deposits essentially duplicate curbside recycling, are inefficient and comprise a regressive “tax” on low income consumers. They further claim that forcing producers to reduce the plastic they produce will harm local businesses and lead to closures or layoffs. Other reasons some are hesitant about this legislation include deposits being “more expensive” than average recycling, taking a heavy toll on distributors’ wallets.

The idea behind both bills, however, is to put responsibility on the producers for their harmful byproducts, making them absorb the cost of cleaning up polluting plastics. These changes would require a lot of effort on the companies’ part, but the end result would benefit everyone, the companies included.

In time, environmental movements like Beyond Plastics hope to see change start with these bills in manufacturing and general recycling. The Ink asked Creshkoff where she saw New York State in ten years. “By then, we’ll have gotten rid of 40 percent of the problematic packaging. So I would expect to see a lot less litter in the landscape. And over time, I would expect to see a healthier population, because the chemicals that are in plastics have been linked to all sorts of adverse health outcomes,” she said. “Many non-communicable diseases, like asthma, diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, infertility and reproductive and developmental issues, are on the rise. Though ten years isn’t fast enough to turn it around, we would certainly be on our way to a healthier population.”

Bottle deposit Benefits

Here a few myths and facts about bottle deposits from bottlebill.org.

Myth: Deposit systems target only a small part of the waste stream.
Fact: While beverage containers constitute less than 6 percent of the waste stream by weight, beverage containers account for 20 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from landfilling a ton of waste products.

Myth: Deposit systems address only a small portion of litter.
Fact: Beverage containers comprise 40 to 60 percent of litter in non-deposit states.

Myth: Deposits aren’t needed where there is curbside recycling.
Fact: Curbside recycling and deposit systems are not mutually exclusive. Together they can be part of a comprehensive approach to recycling.

Myth: Deposits are a “tax” and increase the price of beverages.
Fact: Bottle deposits are refundable, meaning the consumer receives their money back, unlike with taxes.