To the Editor:
New Yorkers should tell Governor Kathy Hochul to remove the proposed Extended Producer Responsibility provision from her 2022 state budget. We should instead pass Assemblymember Steve Englebright’s EPR bill (A5801), which contains the provisions and safeguards needed to actually address some of our state’s most pressing waste management problems.

Without question, New York State urgently needs solutions that address the waste crisis. EPR laws, which have the huge potential to curb the problem, are intended to hold producers responsible for the costs of managing their products at the end of their life. The concept of EPR is a response to the growing problem of waste and plastic pollution in the environment.

Several states and other countries have enacted Extended Producer Responsibility laws that are working well. These models contain provisions that New York State should adopt.

Unfortunately, Governor Hochul’s proposed EPR model fails to include sufficient measures to make it a good law. With its deficiencies, the governor’s plan would be worse than having no EPR law. With no EPR, there would be the opportunity to pass an effective law next year instead of waiting years to experience its failures before replacing it.

As the Ellen MacArthur Foundation states, “To stop packaging pollution we need a circular economy where we eliminate what we don’t need, innovate towards new packaging, products, and business models, and circulate all the packaging we do use, keeping it in the economy and out of the environment ….  Collection, sorting, and recycling of packaging typically costs more to do than the money it makes. EPR is the only proven way to provide funding that is dedicated, ongoing, and sufficient” by requiring companies putting packaging on the market “to pay for its collection, sorting, and recycling after use.”

EPR can only solve the problems of packaging waste and plastic pollution if we get the details right and hold companies accountable.

A joint statement from New York Public Interest Research Group, All Our Energy, and Beyond Plastics, three not-for-profit groups, emphatically states that effective EPR must include reduction in packaging, elimination of toxics from packaging, expanding New York’s successful bottle bill to include non-carbonated beverages and raising the deposit to 10 cents, prohibition on all types of plastic burning since they release toxic compounds into the atmosphere, strong oversight and accountability with rules and standards set by the state environmental agency, and taxpayer relief as companies pay feels to compensate taxpayers for recycling costs.

 Hochul’s proposed bill doesn’t meet the standards for an effective EPR law:

— 1. The proposed bill does not set strict rules and standards or hold companies accountable. It allows for excessive industry self-regulation, letting producers determine how packaging will be returned. The proposal would consider a company in compliance with the law if drop-off sites were within 15 miles of all residents, which would be absolutely unworkable for city dwellers without cars.

While an ideal EPR law would require 50-percent reduction in packaging within 10 years, the governor’s proposal sets no requirements for packaging reduction. All reductions would be voluntary. An effective EPR bill would require 90 percent of non-reusable packaging to be recycled or contain recycled content within 10 years, while the governor’s proposal sets no standards for recycling or recycled content; and

— 2. An effective EPR bill would ban toxic substances from use in packaging. This is especially important in food packaging, as toxic substances can leach into the food, and also for packaging that will be recycled as toxics can build up in the packaging or leach into the environment.

A proper EPR bill would invest revenues in projects that improve recycling and create reuse and refill systems, which the governor’s proposal ignores. Instead of establishing an Office of Inspector General dedicated to EPR enforcement with the power to impose substantial fines to encourage compliance, the governor’s proposal relies on a business-dominated Advisory Committee, essentially allowing the industry to self-regulate.

We need to take serious measures to address our vast environmental problems, but let’s do it right! Reject the governor’s EPR, and pass Assemblymember Englebright’s bill.

Fran Porter

Altamont