As recent initiatives to minimize plastic waste have spread in New York, a proposed bill set to be decided on by congress interrogates this very issue through its possible ban on more single-use plastic products.
Single-use plastic products are items, usually made from fossil fuel-based chemicals, that release greenhouse gases when manufactured and, once used, can take years to fully break down in landfills. They include item wrappers, packaging, and food containers that are typically used once and then discarded.
In 2020, the single-use plastic supermarket bag was banned in New York, but many more of these types of plastic items could go if state lawmakers were to pass the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act.
The packaging reduction bill aims to reduce the use of plastic packaging by 50 percent over 12 years by requiring the companies that produce it to either find more sustainable options or pay a fee, which would go to municipalities across the state. Additionally, the law would ban the use of 19 chemicals deemed the most toxic in plastic production.
Though there is the prospect of recycling, many single-use items, particularly anything soft or bendy, are a challenge to recycle due to their chemical composition and various other reasons.
“The amount of plastics that are recycled is very low because there are so many different types of plastics, different colors and thousands of chemicals used to make them,” said Judith Enck, a former official for the Environmental Protection Agency and the president of Beyond Plastics, an advocacy group that is actively supporting the bill. “They all need to be sorted and cannot be recycled together.”
According to Beyond Plastics, anything flimsy like a potato chip bag, a bread bag, a squeezable baby food pouch should go in the trash in New York City, and the plastic bags that are offered by some food delivery services jam up the machines at recycling centers.
All hard, stiff plastics can be recycled in the city, said Joshua Goodman, a spokesman for the Department of Sanitation.
Although, some environmental experts have speculated that most plastic products still end up in landfills or are incinerated, as both processes produce microplastics that are nearly impossible to remove from the air, ground and water. Despite these complications, Goodman says New Yorkers should still recycle rigid plastic products so they don’t end up in landfills.
The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act is scheduled to decided on by congress in early June.
