Latest news with #BeyondPlastics
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
State Senate set to vote on packaging bill that Republicans, business community say will raise grocery prices
May 27—ALBANY — The state Senate is on track to approve a packaging reduction and recycling reform act that could drastically change the way food manufacturers can package the things they sell in New York grocery stores. The "Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act" would require that manufacturers move toward making all packaging recyclable, requiring that within two years almost all commercial packaging be specifically recyclable. Supporters say that the bill would make massive and meaningful changes to the recycling system, by ensuring that a majority of items most New Yorkers buy from the grocery store are sold in packaging they can actually recycle. For years, criticism over the low participation rate for recycling has mounted, and the market today allows for very few items to actually be recycled. According to Beyond Plastics, a lobbying group focused on environmental and recycling reforms, a majority of New Yorkers report that they want to see a bill with the goals of this bill passed. "None of us voted for more plastic, and New Yorkers across the political spectrum have made it resoundingly clear that we don't want it," Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics, said in a statement in late April. "No wonder — taxpayers are forced to spend hundreds of millions every year just to bury and burn waste at polluting landfills and incinerators." Enck and the bill's supporters project passing it could net $1.3 billion in savings over 10 years by reducing hauling and landfill costs — although even the bill's supporters acknowledge it's likely to increase consumer costs at least in the short term. The plan faces steep criticism from legislative Republicans, business groups and manufacturers in New York, who say the timeline laid out in the bill is too aggressive and isn't feasible. Ken Polansky, vice president of The Business Council of New York, said the bill under review is very worrying to the New York business community. Polansky said that most states have looked at passing programs that increase recyclability without increasing costs for businesses or consumers significantly. "The bill ... that we're talking about today goes in the absolute opposite direction, very different from legislation most recently seen in Minnesota, Maryland and the state of Washington," he said. Polansky said the bill in New York bans specific types of packaging material altogether, and enacts soft bans on other materials by setting wide requirements that those materials just can't meet. The bill requires that all materials sold in New York be recyclable within two years, something Polansky said is not achievable. New York's Republican lawmakers argue the bill will just drive costs up, ultimately for the consumer. By requiring smaller, recyclable packaging for all foodstuffs, the Republican senators argued that manufacturers will either choose to leave the New York market or lean on smaller, faster-degrading packaging that will lead to increased spoilage and increased shipping costs. Referencing a study conducted in Ontario in 2021, Sen. Daniel G. Stec, R-Queensbury, said the anticipated extra costs for an average household would reach nearly $730. "For those of you paying attention, that's twice the governor's gimmicky rebate checks that were just approved by the legislature," Stec said. Assemblyman Kenneth D. Blankenbush, R-Black River, has raised alarms in the past and this year over the potential impact the bill could have on the Kraft-Heinz manufacturing plant in Lowville, which employs hundreds of Lewis County residents and would have to change the packaging for the cream cheese and string cheese made at the facility. "I worry about that packing bill, it can be very tough on businesses like Kraft-Heinz, which employs over 1,000 employees across the state," Blankenbush said. "I met with Kraft-Heinz, and they are concerned." The Republicans agreed that some semblance of a packaging reform act is doable in New York, pointing toward other bills that make less sweeping mandates with longer turnaround times. Sen. Pam A. Helming, R-Canandaigua, said there are more feasible solutions like a bill introduced by Sen. Monica R. Martinez, D-Suffolk, which is modeled after the program in Minnesota and collects fees from product manufacturers to upgrade recycling infrastructure and invest in making the system more efficient. "I urge the Senate and Assembly Democrats to oppose this (PRRIA) legislation and look at the Martinez legislation as a better place to start for a more workable solution," she said. The Senate is likely to vote on, and pass, the PIRRA bill again this year, but with less than two weeks of voting days left in the legislature, it's not clear if there's a path for final passage, as the Assembly has not yet moved the bill out of committee.
CNN
22-04-2025
- Science
- CNN
The climate crisis: How switching to reusable flatware could reduce it
At most places Melissa Valliant goes when dining out, she carries in her backpack a set of reusable flatware — prepared to refuse the disposable utensils she says are part of the plastic pollution crisis that's inextricably linked with the climate crisis. Plastic is made from chemicals derived from fossil fuels, the burning of which drive the climate crisis by producing planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide and methane. Disposable flatware, in particular, is typically produced from a rigid plastic called polystyrene, which is made from a byproduct of petroleum. 'Plastic is contributing to climate change at every stage of its life cycle,' said Valliant, communications director at Beyond Plastics, a nationwide project that works to end plastic pollution and is based at Bennington College in Vermont. 'Plastic production, specifically, is warming the planet four times faster than air travel,' Valliant said. 'In addition to its climate impact, it's also contributing to air and water pollution during the drilling and fracking process and toxic emissions that come out of the plastic production plant.' Additionally, the life cycle of plastics contributes to environmental injustice, as plastics tend to be both manufactured and disposed of in lower-income communities and communities of color, Valliant said. The resulting pollutants have led to a higher rate of cancer in those areas. Processing crude oil also requires a significant amount of energy, Dr. Jillian Goldfarb, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Cornell University in New York state, said via email. 'A typical refinery will use about 1.5 barrels of water for each barrel of oil it processes,' Goldfarb, a fellow of the American Chemical Society, said. Some reports estimate that potentially between 36 billion and 40 billion plastic utensils are used every year just in the United States, which is more than 100 million per day, Valliant said. You might think recycling plastic flatware may offset the harms of using it. But as of 2018, only 9% of all the plastic the world has ever produced — around 9 billion metric tons or nearly 10 billion US tons — had been recycled, according to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme. This means most of the rest ends up in landfills, and the intentional durability of plastics means 'the fork you (ate) lunch with today could be taking up space in a landfill for the next 500 years,' Goldfarb said. 'In landfills, plastic utensils are weakened by mechanical forces like the friction of moving and being compressed among literally tons of trash, as well as biological and chemical means, like the bacteria present in landfills and corrosive chemicals,' Goldfarb said. 'While this does little to degrade the utensils in a meaningful time frame, it does lead to the release of more microplastics, which can travel with leachate and can eventually contaminate groundwater supplies.' What isn't recycled or thrown away is burned or littered, experts said. Burning plastic utensils releases carbon dioxide into the environment, Goldfarb said, and an incinerator that isn't at peak performance can release particulate matter and carbon monoxide. However, emissions of these pollutants from burning are typically low when compared with those from landfills, according to reports by the US Environmental Protection Agency. The agency monitors air emissions and has standards for pollutants, Goldfarb said. The production process for plastics has a significantly worse impact on the environment than individuals' use of them does, which is 'just another reason why waste management solutions for single-use plastic and plastic in general are not going to significantly curb this crisis,' Valliant said. 'We actually need to stop pollution at the source, which means cutting back on the production and use of plastic from the get-go.' To limit your use of plastic flatware, you could switch to compostable, bamboo or metal options, all of which generally require or produce significantly less energy, water, waste or emissions, Goldfarb said. Producing a pound of bamboo forks, for example, expends 0.46 kilowatts per hour, whereas making a pound of plastic forks expends 11 kilowatts per hour, according to Goldfarb. (Manufacturing metal utensils, however, does require more water than plastic utensils.) But you don't have to buy a reusable set from a trendy environmental store — you can just use what you already have, Valliant said. And if a plastic fork weighs about 5 grams, our landfills would be spared roughly 200,000 tons of single-use plastic utensils, 'a weight equivalent to 889 Statues of Liberty,' Valliant added. To put into perspective the savings on electricity use, Goldfarb said, switching from plastic forks to metal 'could save enough energy to charge your iPhone once a day for five years.' 'In the sea of plastic waste we create each year, one person switching to reusable silverware is unlikely to alter the global environmental impacts of plastic utensils on a climate-mitigation scale,' Goldfarb said. 'Yet this person's action — if shared and discussed with others — can form the basis for a community of change. 'Across the country, states and municipalities are banning single-use plastics (including utensils) in growing numbers,' Goldfarb added. 'These collective actions could have very meaningful impacts.' Additionally, by reducing your share of plastic waste and its impact on pollution and the climate crisis, you would also be lowering the odds of microplastics residing in your body, experts said — a phenomenon increasingly detected by recent research. Studies have found microplastics in human blood, lungs, placentas, brains and testicles. 'This is really concerning, because a lot of these chemicals are associated with cancer, hormone disruption, diabetes, fertility issues — the more we learn, the scarier it gets,' Valliant said. 'We should be reducing our exposure to it, which is why it's so important for policymakers to force companies to do so.'
CNN
22-04-2025
- Science
- CNN
The climate crisis: How switching to reusable flatware could reduce it
At most places Melissa Valliant goes when dining out, she carries in her backpack a set of reusable flatware — prepared to refuse the disposable utensils she says are part of the plastic pollution crisis that's inextricably linked with the climate crisis. Plastic is made from chemicals derived from fossil fuels, the burning of which drive the climate crisis by producing planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide and methane. Disposable flatware, in particular, is typically produced from a rigid plastic called polystyrene, which is made from a byproduct of petroleum. 'Plastic is contributing to climate change at every stage of its life cycle,' said Valliant, communications director at Beyond Plastics, a nationwide project that works to end plastic pollution and is based at Bennington College in Vermont. 'Plastic production, specifically, is warming the planet four times faster than air travel,' Valliant said. 'In addition to its climate impact, it's also contributing to air and water pollution during the drilling and fracking process and toxic emissions that come out of the plastic production plant.' Additionally, the life cycle of plastics contributes to environmental injustice, as plastics tend to be both manufactured and disposed of in lower-income communities and communities of color, Valliant said. The resulting pollutants have led to a higher rate of cancer in those areas. Processing crude oil also requires a significant amount of energy, Dr. Jillian Goldfarb, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Cornell University in New York state, said via email. 'A typical refinery will use about 1.5 barrels of water for each barrel of oil it processes,' Goldfarb, a fellow of the American Chemical Society, said. Some reports estimate that potentially between 36 billion and 40 billion plastic utensils are used every year just in the United States, which is more than 100 million per day, Valliant said. You might think recycling plastic flatware may offset the harms of using it. But as of 2018, only 9% of all the plastic the world has ever produced — around 9 billion metric tons or nearly 10 billion US tons — had been recycled, according to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme. This means most of the rest ends up in landfills, and the intentional durability of plastics means 'the fork you (ate) lunch with today could be taking up space in a landfill for the next 500 years,' Goldfarb said. 'In landfills, plastic utensils are weakened by mechanical forces like the friction of moving and being compressed among literally tons of trash, as well as biological and chemical means, like the bacteria present in landfills and corrosive chemicals,' Goldfarb said. 'While this does little to degrade the utensils in a meaningful time frame, it does lead to the release of more microplastics, which can travel with leachate and can eventually contaminate groundwater supplies.' What isn't recycled or thrown away is burned or littered, experts said. Burning plastic utensils releases carbon dioxide into the environment, Goldfarb said, and an incinerator that isn't at peak performance can release particulate matter and carbon monoxide. However, emissions of these pollutants from burning are typically low when compared with those from landfills, according to reports by the US Environmental Protection Agency. The agency monitors air emissions and has standards for pollutants, Goldfarb said. The production process for plastics has a significantly worse impact on the environment than individuals' use of them does, which is 'just another reason why waste management solutions for single-use plastic and plastic in general are not going to significantly curb this crisis,' Valliant said. 'We actually need to stop pollution at the source, which means cutting back on the production and use of plastic from the get-go.' To limit your use of plastic flatware, you could switch to compostable, bamboo or metal options, all of which generally require or produce significantly less energy, water, waste or emissions, Goldfarb said. Producing a pound of bamboo forks, for example, expends 0.46 kilowatts per hour, whereas making a pound of plastic forks expends 11 kilowatts per hour, according to Goldfarb. (Manufacturing metal utensils, however, does require more water than plastic utensils.) But you don't have to buy a reusable set from a trendy environmental store — you can just use what you already have, Valliant said. And if a plastic fork weighs about 5 grams, our landfills would be spared roughly 200,000 tons of single-use plastic utensils, 'a weight equivalent to 889 Statues of Liberty,' Valliant added. To put into perspective the savings on electricity use, Goldfarb said, switching from plastic forks to metal 'could save enough energy to charge your iPhone once a day for five years.' 'In the sea of plastic waste we create each year, one person switching to reusable silverware is unlikely to alter the global environmental impacts of plastic utensils on a climate-mitigation scale,' Goldfarb said. 'Yet this person's action — if shared and discussed with others — can form the basis for a community of change. 'Across the country, states and municipalities are banning single-use plastics (including utensils) in growing numbers,' Goldfarb added. 'These collective actions could have very meaningful impacts.' Additionally, by reducing your share of plastic waste and its impact on pollution and the climate crisis, you would also be lowering the odds of microplastics residing in your body, experts said — a phenomenon increasingly detected by recent research. Studies have found microplastics in human blood, lungs, placentas, brains and testicles. 'This is really concerning, because a lot of these chemicals are associated with cancer, hormone disruption, diabetes, fertility issues — the more we learn, the scarier it gets,' Valliant said. 'We should be reducing our exposure to it, which is why it's so important for policymakers to force companies to do so.'
Yahoo
06-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Group takes legal action against university and city over maintenance of sports facility: 'Spreading relentlessly and causing harm'
A grassroots environmental group is suing Cornell University and the city of Ithaca, New York, over their use of turfgrass. According to volunteer organization Zero Waste Ithaca's lawsuit challenges the approval of synthetic turf fields, citing public health and environmental risks such as microplastic pollution and exposure to carcinogenic chemicals. "Synthetic turf is like an invasive species, spreading relentlessly and causing harm," a ZWI representative told the digital news outlet. "Cornell's continued investment in these fields, despite overwhelming evidence of their harms to human health and the environment, is a betrayal of their responsibility to students, athletes, and the community." According to Beyond Plastics, artificial turfs contain a number of harmful chemicals, including known human carcinogens benzene, arsenic, and crystalline silica. Environment America reported that turf grasses also contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as "forever chemicals," which have been tied to cancer, among other serious health impacts. In addition, Beyond Plastics asserted that synthetic turf fields lose 0.5 to 8.0% of their "grass" blades each year, adding 200 to 3,200 pounds of plastics and microplastics to our environment. For instance, one group of Spanish researchers found that 15% of the larger plastic particles they discovered off the Barcelona coast originated from artificial turfgrass. When plastics and microplastics enter our air, soil, waterways, and oceans, it puts humans and wildlife at risk. The effects of microplastic exposure are still being studied, but they have already been linked to heart damage and increased risk of respiratory illnesses. Some places, like Millbrae, California, have enacted laws that prevent residents from installing artificial turf. Beverly Hills is working on a similar ban. However, turf grass isn't the only source of polluting plastics — they're all around us, from the throwaway silverware given by many restaurants to the bottled water sold at the grocery store. You can protect yourself and the environment from the dangers of microplastics by limiting your use of single-use plastics, which turn into smaller microplastics as they degrade over time. When it comes to PFAS, you can protect yourself by seeking out PFAS-free brands with the help of PFAS Central, opting to forgo nonstick cookware, and limiting your purchases of stain- or water-resistant clothing. Should the government ban gas stoves? Yes Only in new buildings Only in restaurants No way Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Yahoo
11-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Massive new facility will help address growing global issue: 'A landmark initiative'
The Nigerian sector of Coca-Cola recently announced plans to build a massive plastic collection facility in Apapa, Lagos. The facility, which the company calls "a landmark initiative," will process up to 13,000 metric tons — or 28.6 million pounds — of plastic bottles annually. At the new facility, plastic bottles will be cleaned, processed, and sent to third-party companies for recycling into pellets or yarn for reuse as recycled plastic. "This hub will serve as a critical center for collecting, sorting, and recycling PET plastics, which will significantly reduce plastic pollution in our environment," Lagos Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu said in a press release. According to Break Free From Plastic, The Coca-Cola Co. is ranked as the top plastic polluter in the world — a title it has held for six years straight. Coca-Cola said the facility will help support its sustainability goals of using 35% to 40% recycled material in its plastic, glass, and aluminum packaging. Through the facility, the brand also wants to collect and process 70% to 75% of the equivalent number of bottles and cans it brings to market by 2035. "This facility represents a significant milestone in our journey of reducing waste by collecting and recycling our packaging in Nigeria," Zoran Bogdanovic, chief executive officer of Nigerian Bottling Co., Coca‑Cola's bottling partner in Nigeria, said in the press release. "By investing in the hub, we are supporting local communities and creating jobs, as well as demonstrating our commitment to building a more sustainable future in a country that is integral to the success of our business." Every minute, more than 1 million plastic bottles are bought worldwide, according to Beyond Plastics. And all that plastic can cause serious strain on the planet. At least 15 million metric tons of plastic enter the ocean each year. Experts predict that plastic in the ocean will outweigh fish by 2050 unless something changes. Plastic also never truly biodegrades in the environment. It simply turns into smaller and smaller pieces called microplastics, contaminating waterways, soil, air — everything. But discarded plastics aren't the only environmental strain. So is plastic production. The United Nations Environment Programme calls the production of plastic one of the most energy-intensive manufacturing processes in the world. That's because plastic is made from fossil fuels such as crude oil, requiring intense mining, refining, and processing to create a final product. And in each step of the plastic-making process, a massive amount of planet-warming pollution is expelled into our environment. Should the government be able to control how we heat our homes? Definitely Only if it saves money I'm not sure No way Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. In 2022, Coca-Cola pledged to make 25% of its packaging reusable by 2030. But the company quietly removed the promise from its website earlier this year. While Coca-Cola has made some strides toward sustainability, including powering production facilities with solar and supporting plastic cleanup efforts, the company has also made several missteps. The beverage giant recently debuted a commercial made by wasteful generative artificial intelligence, which can have a detrimental impact on the environment. The company also recently told investors it will increase plastic packaging if aluminum prices rise under the Trump administration's new 25% tax on metal imports. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
