Rochester City Council Urges Albany Leaders to Protect Lake Ontario By Curbing Plastic Pollution

ROCHESTER, NY (01/29/2024) (readMedia)-- The Rochester City Council unanimously passed a resolution urging Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York state Legislature to pass the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act (A5322/S4246-A) and the Bigger, Better Bottle Bill (A6353/S237-B). See the resolution attached, which was adopted on January 23, 2024.

Judith Enck, former EPA regional administrator and president of Beyond Plastics, issued the following statement:

"The Rochester City Council knows we can't recycle our way out of the plastic pollution problem. Less than 6% of plastic in the United States actually gets recycled, and taxpayers are stuck spending tax dollars to ship the rest to landfills and trash incinerators just to contaminate our environment and harm our health. A 2023 study showed 90% of Great Lakes water samples - which Rochester residents drink - had unsafe microplastic levels. The New York state legislature should follow the city council's recommendation to reduce plastic waste by passing the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act."

Background

According to polling from Oceana, nearly 9 in 10 New Yorkers support policies that reduce single-use plastic.

The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act will do just that by transforming the way our goods are packaged. It will reduce waste and ease the burden on taxpayers by making companies, not consumers, cover the cost of managing excess packaging. Applying to companies with a net annual income of over $1 million, the bill will:

• Reduce plastic packaging by 50% over 12 years (incrementally, with 10% reduction in three years, 20% in five years, 30% in eight years, and 40% in 10 years);
• After 12 years, all plastic (plus glass, paper, and metal, which typically already meet this standard) must be at least 70% recyclable;
• Prohibit the 15 worst toxic chemicals in packaging;
• Prohibit so-called chemical recycling to be considered real recycling; and
• Establish a modest fee on packaging paid by packaging producers, with new revenue going to local taxpayers.

The City of New York has officially backed the bill (see attached), and more than 200 organizations and businesses - including Beyond Plastics, Environmental Advocates, NYPIRG, Earthjustice, Blueland, and DeliverZero - issued a memo of support (see attached) released today. They write, "This bill would save tax dollars and position New York as a global leader in reducing plastic pollution."

Under the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act, not only would it cost less for taxpayers to get rid of waste, but local governments would also receive new revenue from packaging fees paid by producers. This would provide substantial revenue - New York City alone would receive at least $150 million to support recycling and waste disposal costs.

The Bigger, Better Bottle Bill would amend the Environmental Conservation Law (ECL) by expanding the successful 40-year-old returnable container deposit program to include more beverage containers. The expansion would include bottled noncarbonated beverages, noncarbonated juices that are less than 100% fruit or vegetable juice, coffee, tea, carbonated fruit beverages, wine, liquor, distilled spirit coolers, and cider. This bill also increases the bottle deposit to 10 cents per container.

Plastics and Climate

Plastic production is already out of control and is expected to double in the next 20 years. As more of our energy comes from renewable sources, fossil fuel companies like Shell and Exxon are seeking to recoup falling profits by increasing plastics production and canceling out greenhouse gas reductions. In fact, half of all plastic in Earth's history was produced in the last 20 years - the plastic we're seeing now in our air, water, food, bodies didn't even exist before 2000.

Plastic is made out of fossil fuels and toxic chemicals. Most plastics are made out of "ethane," a byproduct of fracking. In 2020, plastic's climate impacts amounted to the equivalent of nearly 49 million cars on the road, according to a conservative estimate by Material Research. And that's not including the carbon footprint associated with disposing of plastic. Compared to other types of waste, like paper or glass, plastic carries the highest greenhouse gas burden. While the waste management of paper, such as recycling and landfilling, saved the emission equivalent of removing nearly 34 million cars from the road, the same processes for plastic resulted in the emissions equivalent of adding 89,000 cars to the road.

Plastics and Health

Less than 6% of plastic actually gets recycled, and only 9% of all the plastic waste ever generated has been recycled! The rest ends up in landfills, incinerators, lakes, rivers, and the ocean, - an estimated 33 billion pounds of plastic enter the ocean every year. Plastic is everywhere, and microplastics are entering our soil, food, water, and air. Scientists estimate people consume, on average, hundreds of thousands of microplastics per year, and these particles have been found in human placenta, breast milk, stool, blood, and lungs. Scientists are still researching how exactly this is affecting our health, but chemicals found in plastics have been associated with cancer, nervous system damage, hormone disruption, and fertility issues.

In fact, new research continues to find that the microplastics problem is worse than previously thought: A new study from Columbia University found that bottled water can contain hundreds of thousands of plastic fragments. In addition to bottled water, tap water has been shown to contain microplastics too.

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