New York’s growing trash crisis has been well-documented. The state’s capacity to take this problem on is dwindling. According to a 2023 report by the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation (“DEC”), “New York’s 25 municipal solid waste landfills have a combined landfill capacity of between 16 and 25 years.”
The number one place that residential trash goes to is a landfill; number two is export for disposal; number three is garbage-burning incinerators; and last is getting recycled. There is no evidence that the problem is getting better. In fact, the state’s residential recycling rate has been dropping over the past decade. By the way, these disposal methods can contribute to the climate crisis: Solid waste accounts for 12% of statewide greenhouse gas emissions, most of which comes from decomposing waste in landfills.
If the state’s landfills are filled to capacity in a decade or so, what will happen? Trucking the waste somewhere else is likely to be the option, but that is expensive and uncertain: Who knows for how long someone else will be willing to take New York’s trash? Already, New York City exports nearly all of its trash. Unless something changes, the rest of the state will have to follow that very expensive route.
But sending the trash “somewhere” has huge problems.
For example, plastic waste increasingly ends up in developing countries – communities without regulations to handle the waste appropriately. According to reporting in the New York Times, in Kenya cattle have been found to possess plastic in their stomach linings, while 69 percent of discarded plastic enters a water system. In Indonesia, plastic waste is so mishandled that 365 tons of it enter the sea every hour. As a result, mismanaged trash in the developing world is linked to the death of hundreds of thousands every year.
Yet the plastic pollution problem may get much worse.
Last week, the soft drink giant Coca-Cola, warned that the Trump Administration’s proposed 25% tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum entering the U.S., which could push up the prices of canned food and drink, will result in it shifting some of its beverage containers away from aluminum and toward plastic.
Increasing tariffs on aluminum may well result in making New York’s trash problem worse, not better, since plastic is nowhere as easy to recycle as aluminum. The recycling rate of PET bottles and jars was 29.1% in 2018, compared with the recycling rate of aluminum beer and soft drink cans at 50.4% in the same year, according to data from the Environmental Protection Agency. Given New York’s anemic, and slipping, recycling rate, more plastic waste means more trash that must be disposed of.
What should be done? Here are three measures that Albany must act upon this legislative session:
First, increase spending on recycling. Governor Hochul is proposing to freeze spending for the state’s Environmental Protection Fund. That Fund provides – among other things – funding for “encouraging recycling; providing safe disposal of household hazardous waste; ensuring safe closure of landfills; and developing markets for waste materials.” The executive budget keeps funding flat at $400 million. A wide array of groups have urged an increase in that to $500 million.
Second, force packaging manufacturers to be more accountable for their wastes. The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act will dramatically reduce plastic packaging, phase out some of the most toxic chemicals used in packaging, and improve recyclability of packaging.
Third, modernize the state’s Bottle Deposit Law, also known as the “Bottle Bill.” That’s the law that requires a nickel deposit on certain carbonated beverages and bottled water. When you return the container, you get your nickel back. The DEC describes the Bottle Bill as a “tremendous success.” But many beverage containers are not covered under the law and the deposit has been a nickel for four decades, if adjusted for inflation that nickel would be worth 15 cents today. Expanding the law to all beverages – like iced teas and sports drinks – and increasing the deposit to a dime, would go a long way in making the program work even better.
Modernizing the Bottle Bill would not only help with the trash crisis, but according to a recent report, it would boost state revenues by as much as $100 million – money that could be used to help with the trash crisis.
Lastly, redeeming more aluminum cans would also help companies, like Coca-Cola, expand the supply of easily recyclable containers to help respond to the Trump Tariffs. A win, win proposition.
The measures would reduce packaging waste and promote the concept of a “circular economy” – one in which wastes are reduced to a minimum. Boosting funding of the state’s EPF would also help reverse the state’s decline in recycling.
As lawmakers return to the Capitol next week to start to hammer out next year’s budget, they must tackle the solid waste disposal crisis head on. The packaging reduction, bottle deposit law, and EPF are three good places to start.