A push to pass the Plastic Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act is once again picking up steam in New York. The "extended producer responsibility" legislation passed through the Environmental Conservation Committee in the state Senate and Assembly, and advocates held a rally at the state Capitol this week to capitalize on the momentum.

The bill would enforce regulations on companies with an income in excess of $1 million that advocates say will reduce plastic packaging by 30% incrementally over 12 years.

Judith Enck, former regional EPA administrator and president of Beyond Plastics, is one of the packaging bill’s chief advocates. She stressed that over time, Americans have attempted to rely too heavily on the "recycle" element of reduce, reuse, recycle.

"There are too many types of plastics," she said. "They are, by definition, not easy to recycle." 

The time has come, she said, to focus on "reduce." 

“This bill is commensurate to the problem we’re trying to solve,” she said. “None of us voted for more plastics. When you go to the supermarket, you have very little choice.”

For impacted companies, the bill would phase out 17 of what Enck describes as the most toxic chemicals used in packaging, including PFAS, formaldehyde and vinyl chloride.

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t want PFAS chemicals touching my broccoli,” she said.

The bill also contains other initiatives to regulate recycling infrastructure, including chemical recycling, and weed out materials not easily recycled.

“It doesn’t eliminate all plastic packaging, it just says the company has to reduce, companywide, by 30 percent,” she said.  

The legislation also institutes a fee for plastic packaging to be paid to municipalities, which Enck billed as a new revenue stream for local governments.

Enck called the proposal the most comprehensive of its kind. Those who are skeptical of the bill say that’s the problem.

Business interests like chemical giant Eastman say they support packaging-reduction legislation in general, but point out that if not crafted with sufficient business input, rigidity could limit the role of new technology in recycling and encourage harmful alternatives to the chemicals it seeks to ban.

Chris Layton, director of circular policy strategy and communications for Eastman, emphasized that solutions must take into account containers like shampoo bottles that don’t lend themselves to other forms of packaging like paper.

“These proposals need to allow new, innovative technologies that can address some of this plastic that we’re not going to be able to design away from,” he said.

The Business Council is backing another bill sponsored by state Senator Monica Martinez that also claims to put the responsibility on the producer. They argue it avoids what they describe as unrealistic mandates, excessive material bans that they say target materials already regulated by the FDA, and would allow more industry input.

“It gives the producers themselves who have the expertise a far greater role in designing what this program is supposed to look like,” said Ken Pokalsky, vice president of government affairs for the Business Council.

But Enck cautioned that’s because the Martinez bill gives most of it’s regulatory power to the DEC, when she says it belongs with the state Legislature.

“This is clearly within the purview of lawmakers to decide policy, not to kick the can down the road and then have the industry lobbyists lobby the state agency to go as weak as possible,” she said.

State Sen. Pete Harckham stressed that bill’s language has been amended numerous times to address industry concerns.

“We have bent over backwards to create a good bill,” he said at the rally.