By NEIL SELDMAN and YAYOI KOIZUMI
NEW YORK STATE — The New York Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act (S7408/A8007), an extended producer responsibility (EPR) bill, is one of the most talked-about environmental bills in Albany this year. On paper, it aims to make corporations responsible for the packaging waste they create. In practice, it’s a fascinating contradiction.
The bill begins from the right premise: Companies that profit from disposable packaging should be required to reduce it. For decades, corporations have externalized the cost of waste—financially, ecologically and socially—while local governments and taxpayers foot the bill. Extending producer responsibility is long overdue.
But here’s the contradiction. After correctly identifying industry as the source of the problem, the bill hands that same industry control over the solution. A single producer-run organization—funded and directed by corporations like Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Procter & Gamble—would design, finance and operate the program. The polluter pays, but the polluter also decides how the money is spent. That turns “polluter pays” into “polluter controls.”
This is not a theoretical concern. When chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were banned from aerosol cans in the late 1970s, the industry predicted chaos. It claimed the economy would collapse and that alternatives were impossible. Yet the day after the ban took effect, the same companies had their products back on shelves in non-aerosol packaging. Packaging engineers can adapt to any standard set by law—they just need to be told what the standard is.
That’s the point of government: to set clear rules in the public interest, not let corporations write the rules for themselves. The New York bill, however, does exactly that. It turns the regulatory framework over to private management, where public oversight is minimal.
Supporters call the bill a step forward because it sets packaging-reduction targets and restricts certain toxics like PFAS. Those are welcome provisions. But without a truly public structure to enforce them, they will remain paper goals. The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), which would supervise the program, already struggles with accountability. Expecting that same agency to police a producer-run system is unrealistic.
There are better ways to do this. Across the country, communities have shown how citizen action can reshape waste policy. Local governments and grassroots organizations have led the fight against incinerators, promoted reuse systems and driven genuine zero-waste progress. These movements work because they are public, participatory and transparent. New York’s EPR bill should follow that model, not a corporate one.
Several changes could align the bill with its stated purpose:
Replace the producer-run organization with a public agency.
Packaging reduction and recycling should be managed by a publicly accountable body, not by corporations that profit from waste. This would ensure decisions and investments are transparent and directed toward true reduction and reuse.
Protect local control and community reuse programs.
The bill must guarantee that local governments and nonprofits can continue running and expanding reuse, refill and bring-your-own (BYO) systems without being preempted or defunded by a state-level corporate plan.
Guarantee transparency and public access to data.
All producer submissions, fee schedules and tonnage reports should be public and searchable. Without this information, watchdogs and citizens cannot hold companies accountable.
Many other fixes are needed—stronger timelines, clear definitions of toxics and tighter loopholes—but unless these three fundamentals are addressed, the bill remains morally compromised. Public control, local empowerment and transparency are the minimum standards for credibility.
New York can still get this right. Instead of outsourcing responsibility to a private producer organization, the state could create a public agency to manage funds and direct them toward proven solutions—community reuse infrastructure across foodware, construction materials and textiles. The expertise already exists; what’s missing is democratic oversight.
Waste policy is complex, but its principle is simple: Those who profit from pollution should be accountable to the public, not the other way around. The legislature still has time to fix this contradiction and pass a law that truly serves the people of the state.
Neil Seldman directs the Recycling Cornucopia Program for Zero Waste USA. Yayoi Koizumi is the founder of Zero Waste Ithaca.
