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A bill that would force New York companies to pay for the amount of plastic packaging waste they produce is up against strong pushback from influential business groups, making it one of the biggest unsettled topics in the waning days of this year’s Albany session.
The bill, targeting the single-use plastics that litter landfills across the state, would shift the cost burden of dealing with plastic waste from local governments to the companies that sell the packaged products. By requiring those companies to pay into a fund for the amount of packaging they produce, supporters say the legislation will reduce the nearly 5 pounds of trash that the average New Yorker produces each day, and encourage the use of more environmentally-friendly materials.
But its foremost opponents include the Business Council of New York and the American Chemistry Council, both of which have lobbied lawmakers heavily against the bill this year and opposed it when the legislation was discussed in previous years.
The Business Council argues that consumers will ultimately be forced to pay higher costs for products if the rules go into effect, and that some provisions would be impossible for companies to comply with. In recent days, industry groups have marshaled a study by York University in Toronto that found the bill could add $1 billion in annual costs to consumers over five years.
“The current legislative proposal is not workable,” said Ken Pokalsky, the Business Council’s vice president of government affairs, in a statement on Monday.
Gov. Kathy Hochul has supported versions of the bill in the past, and Mayor Eric Adams’ administration is backing the proposal as well. But time is running out: This year’s legislative session ends June 6.
Deborah Glick, a Manhattan lawmaker who sponsors the bill in the Assembly, said in an interview that New York is “running out of space” to store plastic waste.
“Using more reusable commodities is smart business,” Glick said. “Younger people in particular will make choices based on that, and we are giving industry an opportunity, in a stepped fashion, to make better decisions about packaging design.”
The bill would require companies to reduce their volume of plastic packaging waste by 10% within three years, and 50% within 12 years. Although other states including California and Oregon have passed similar so-called “extended producer responsibility” laws, industry critics say the New York bill oversteps by also restricting specific chemicals.
Pokalsky has said the Business Council and its industry allies are open to some version of an EPR bill, but not one that “bans essential materials used in packaging.”
Lawmakers have softened the bill in recent weeks by making it apply only to businesses with more than $5 million in annual revenues — up from the previous threshold of $1 million — and exempting companies that produce less than two tons of packaging material per year, an increase from one ton previously. Glick said those changes were based mostly on testimony from small-business owners, rather than feedback from major groups like the Business Council.
Others who have lobbied lawmakers on — and presumably against — the bill this year include Coca-Cola, the Clorox Company, Procter & Gamble and Anheuser-Busch, records show. It is strongly backed by environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, which says the legislation would protect against harmful “forever chemicals.”
Critics have pointed to individually-wrapped cheese slices and bags of frozen vegetables as products that could become infeasible if the bill passes. Backers of the bill counter that simple cardboard or paper containers would solve that problem.
No floor votes have been scheduled yet for the bill, which is sponsored by more than half of the Senate and just under a majority of the Assembly. But Glick said Friday that she is an “optimist” about the chances of passing it this year.
“I know that the City of New York is very anxious for this to get done,” she said.
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Nick Garber , 2024-05-10 21:36:47
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