The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act Is THE Environmental Bill to Watch in 2026

ALBANY, NY (01/06/2026) (readMedia)-- The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act (PRRIA) is BACK! Did you miss us? Of course you did! With the 2026 legislative session starting tomorrow, here's everything you may have forgotten about A1749 Glick/S1464 Harckham.

• PRRIA will transform the way our goods are packaged. It will dramatically reduce waste and ease the burden on taxpayers by making plastic polluters (i.e plastic producers), not consumers, cover the cost of managing packaging. The legislation will:
  
  • Reduce plastic packaging by 30% incrementally over 12 years;
  • By 2052, all packaging - including plastic, glass, cardboard, paper, and metal - must meet a recycling rate of 75% (with incremental benchmarks until then);
  • Prohibit 17 of packaging's worst toxic chemicals and materials, including all PFAS chemicals, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), lead, and mercury;
  • Prohibit the harmful process known as chemical recycling to be considered real recycling;
  • Establish a modest fee on packaging paid by product producers, with new revenue going to local taxpayers; and
  • Establish a new Office of Inspector General to ensure that companies fully comply with the new law.

• The legislation will save New York taxpayers $1.3 billion in just one decade - and those savings are just from cutting waste! That number gets even bigger when you factor in the added savings from polluters paying their fair share.
• PRRIA will also have major health benefits. You may remember last year's digital ad campaign that highlighted plastic's harmful impacts on female reproductive health, or the 2024 ad about male reproductive health.
• PRRIA passed the Senate in both 2024 and 2025. It made it through all four Assembly committees last year, but did not come up for a vote. Now, we're starting 2026 with 77 co-sponsors and enough votes to pass in the Assembly. It is already on the Assembly floor and does not have to go through all 4 committees again.
• This is David versus Goliath. A bipartisan 73% of New York voters are in favor of the bill. But Last year, there were a whopping 107 registered lobbyists working against the bill - megacorporations like ExxonMobil, Shell, McDonalds, Amazon, and Coca-Cola. Compare that to the 23 lobbyists working in favor of the bill - mostly nonprofit groups like NYPIRG, NRDC and Food & Water Watch. Read more about the lobbying around PRRIA here.
• In addition to those megacorporations, the American Chemistry Council led a deceptive and misleading campaign against the legislation. NY Focus detailed the campaign against the bill in a three-part series:
  • Chemistry Industry Redoubles Campaign Against New York Waste Bill
  • Ad Campaign Funded by Chemical Industry Skirted Campaign Finance Rules
  • As Albany Debates Plastics Crackdown, Industry Pushes Softer Alternative
• Megacorporations may be spending millions to defeat PRRIA, but the people want the bill. Over 30 localities across the state have passed resolutions urging Albany leaders to pass the bill because it would save tax dollars. The New York City Council passed a resolution in support, and the former Mayor's Office released a memorandum of support in favor of the legislation (the new Mayor was a co-sponsor of the bill).
• Last year, several newspapers across the state editorialized for the legislation including the Buffalo News, Albany Times-Union, and New York Daily News.
• More than 300 organizations and businesses - including Beyond Plastics, Hip Hop Caucus, League of Women Voters, Environmental Advocates, NYPIRG, Earthjustice, Blueland, and DeliverZero - issued a memo of support stating, "This bill would save tax dollars and position New York as a global leader in reducing plastic pollution."
• There's so much support for this bill because there is mounting evidence that plastic is harmful for the climate, environment, and our health. Plastic is made from fossil fuels and 16,000 chemicals, many of them known to be harmful to humans and even more untested for their safety. Plastic production is warming the planet four times faster than air travel, and it's only going to get worse with plastic production expected to double in the next 20 years.
• Less than 6% of plastic in the United States actually gets recycled. The rest ends up burned at incinerators, buried in landfills, or polluting rivers and the ocean.
• Plastic is being measured everywhere, and microplastics are entering our soil, food, water, and air. Scientists estimate people consume, on average, hundreds of thousands of microplastics per year. Scientific research continues to find that the microplastics problem is worse than previously thought: New research in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that microplastics are linked to increased heart attacks, strokes and premature deaths.

About Beyond Plastics
Launched in 2019, Beyond Plastics pairs the wisdom and experience of environmental policy experts with the energy and creativity of grassroots advocates to build a vibrant and effective movement to end plastic pollution. Using deep policy and advocacy expertise, Beyond Plastics is building a well-informed, effective movement seeking to achieve the institutional, economic, and societal changes needed to save our planet and ourselves, from the negative health, climate, and environmental impacts for the production, usage, and disposal of plastics.