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When you buy products at a store or online, they come with massive amounts of packaging — much of it single-use plastics. New Yorkers have no control over how much single-use packaging is pumped into the market by companies, yet we have to pay to manage all that packaging waste — or, the waste becomes unsightly pollution in our waterways, where it can choke wildlife, break into tiny microplastics, and leach toxic chemicals.

Plastic accounts for nearly all packaging that cannot be reused or effectively recycled - but a new bill in New York could transform that.

The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act, introduced by Assemblymember Deborah Glick and Senator Pete Harckham, would require companies to:

• Reduce their plastic packaging by 30% in 12 years.
• Make the remaining packaging truly reusable or recyclable.
• Get certain toxic chemicals out of packaging.
• Pay to clean up their packaging waste by reimbursing municipalities and taxpayers for the collection and processing of those materials.

The bill would also prohibit incineration and "chemical recycling" (waste-derived fuels) from counting as recycling.

Why this bill is important:

Single-use packaging pollutes environmental justice communities where plastic is made and where waste that cannot be recycled is landfilled, incinerated, or dumped. New York City alone trashes 1,579,600 pounds of plastic bottles and jugs every week, and spends nearly half a billion dollars each year to export its municipal waste to incinerators and landfills.

Single-use packaging harms people and our planet from manufacturing through disposal. Plastics generate 4x the greenhouse gas emissions as the global aviation industry. New York must use this critical opportunity to pass the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Act.