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New York Assembly Member Englebright just announced a strong new proposal for Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). Help make good policy a reality and make your voice heard now, before this year's legislative session ends on June 2 without action to solve our plastic pollution, recycling, and waste crisis.

Word was just released that the overall recycling rate for plastics has decreased even more, from a measly 9%, to under 6% [1]. Only about 5% of the waste plastic in the United States was recycled in 2019.   86% was left in landfills and the rest was burned to generate electricity, [2] both of which release climate changing gases and pollution in our air, land, and waters.

EPR policy is designed to make producers of packaging “pay the environmental costs associated with a product throughout the product life cycle… to increase the amount and degree of product recovery (recycling) and minimize the environmental impact of waste materials.”[3]

Assemblyman Englebright's EPR proposal works for the environment and our communities, and if passed...

• Requires producers to pay for the life cycle costs of their materials
• Creates mandatory reduction of the amount of packaging clogging up the system
• Maintains recycling pickups and improves what happens after
• Requires all packaging to state if it is “readily recyclable” or certified compostable
• Moves packaging to 90% recyclable or certified compostable over 10 years
• Creates mandatory percentage of recycled content in all packaging – 50% in 5 years increasing to 90%, restoring the market for the materials and incentives for more sustainable materials and boosts recycling rates
• Bans toxic substances and chemicals from the packaging stream, which are bad for our health and which make new packaging toxic when recycled
• Fees will be “eco-modulated”, so the harder to deal with the material’s end of life, or the worse for the environment, the more it will cost, putting the incentive on using sustainable materials.
• Materials in a reusable, refillable system have no fees, so those best solutions are adopted
• The rules, benchmarks, goals, targets, timelines, & reporting are all spelled out for good oversight
• Gives oversight to the state regulator, not the corporations being regulated
• Excludes anti-environmental and climate damaging practices like plastic burning (a/k/a “chemical recycling” or “advanced recycling”) and landfilling from being considered “recycling” and though it doesn’t ban them, the fees charged to use these methods would be very high as bad solutions and also because greenhouse gas emissions must be factored into the formula, raising the fee.

I support a strong EPR, to help solve the plastic pollution, recycling and waste crisis. And to go with it, i support the Bigger Better Bottle Bill proposal:

I call for two changes to modernize the Bottle Bill:

1. Expand the types and number of beverage containers covered by the Bottle Bill. Other states from Maine to California include a diverse range of non-carbonated beverages, wine, and liquor to great success.
2. Increase the amount of the deposit to a dime and direct a portion of the additional revenues collected by the state to ensure better compliance and enhance access to redemption entities in currently underserved communities. States like Michigan and Oregon that have increased their deposit to a dime have seen increases in recycling and container redemption rates.

Over its 40-year history, New York’s Bottle Bill has proven highly effective at reducing litter and increasing recycling rates. In 2020, New York’s redemption rate was at 64% and doing this will increase the rates and the vast amount of bottles not currently included, for a huge environmental win that uplifts communities. It is time to modernize the law for a new era to increase those numbers, better protect the environment, and decrease the costs for taxpayers and municipalities by removing these containers from unnecessarily filling up their waste and recycling stream.

More info in the letter when you click "start writing".

1]The Real Truth About the U.S. Plastic Recycling Rate: 2021 U.S. Facts and Figures, Beyond Plasstics, The Last Beach Cleanup, 2022

2] NREL Calculates Lost Value of Landfilled Plastic In U.S., National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 2022

3] Wikipedia definition of "Extended Producer Responsibility"