ALBANY- This week, Senator Peter Harckham (D, Westchester), Chairman of the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee, held a legislative hearing in Albany to examine ways to reduce waste from packaging. One of the options is an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) program that would require producers, rather than municipalities, to deal with trash created from packaging.
Almost one-third of the waste generated in the United States is from plastic and packaging and many municipal recycling programs are struggling with rising costs and a shrinking market for raw recycled material. With many environmental advocates pushing for the establishment of statewide EPR some groups, including the New York Farm Bureau, believe such a program would be too costly.
“Farm producers are unprepared to assume this type of responsibility, from both a management and financial perspective, especially given the current downturn of the farm economy, and the increased costs of doing business resulting from the rise of inflation impacting all businesses,” said New York Farm Bureau President David Fisher.
Fisher believes the financial impacts that EPR would have on agricultural producers, including dairy farms and processors, wineries, cideries, and other food and beverage producers who use packaging would be significant. He also has concerns about restrictions of some plastic packaging that is required for food safety. Increased costs to producers has the potential of driving up consumer costs for food.
“We believe legislation containing this complex level of change and upheaval to the current system, which severely impacts farms and the general business community, needs much more stakeholder input, as well as an impact study prior to the legislation moving forward. Within this legislation there is a lot of uncertainty and many questions regarding the producer responsibility organizations’ creation, the overall costs, as well as how packaging from out of state will be handled,” said Fisher.
The state legislature is scheduled to return to session in January. EPR legislation has been stalled for several years and it is unclear if there will be a renewed push to pass its provisions this session.
