Legislative Actions

For more than two decades, the New York State Association for Reduction, Reuse, and Recycling (NYSAR3) -- and it members from the public and private sectors -- have played a leadership role in establishing environmental initiatives to reduce waste and increase recycling. A key part of that effort includes advancing legislation on the state level with a two-fold purpose:

  • Promoting public and environmental health, and
  • Creating the sustainable materials management economy of the future.   

NYSAR3’s legislative efforts help create a vibrant state economy and job growth by supporting statewide policies that capture more materials for recycling-related industries. Many of these materials, including plastics and electronics, were formally considered “waste,” and were headed for disposal, but are now the raw-materials for new products, and support tens of thousands of jobs throughout New York State.

Some of NYSAR3’s recent legislative efforts include support for:

The New York State Electronics Equipment Recycling and Reuse Act

Statewide Paint Stewardship Bill

(Peoples-Stokes), Same As Senate Bill S04690-A (Grisanti), Referred to EnCon. This bill would require paint manufacturers to establish a statewide Product Stewardship program providing convenient statewide collection of post-consumer paint.This bill will stimulate new industry in NY State (for paint recycling), and reduce municipal costs to manage old paint. 

Expansion of the New York State Bottle Bill

Mercury Thermostat Recovery

Requirement that Campaign Literature in New York State Include a Recycling Notice

(Roberts), Same As Senate Bill S04781-A (Valesky) - which would require all printed political campaign mailing pieces to include a message about recycling the printed materials.

Recovery and Recycling of Film Plastics

The legislation, now awaiting Governor Cuomo’s signature, was recently passed by both houses of the New York State legislature, and would require NYS to alter the existing plastic bag recovery and recycling program by adding film plastic products to the collection programs in certain retail locations; the current law is solely directed at carryout plastic bags. Film plastics and plastic bags comprise a surprisingly large portion of the waste stream by weight; approximately 10%.

Prohibit Mercury-Added Rotational Balancing Products

The proposed bill would specifically prohibit the sale, offer for sale or distribution of mercury-added rotational balancing products after April 1, 2015 and prohibit replacing or balancing motor vehicle wheels with mercury containing products after that date. The proposal would also prohibit the sale of any new motor vehicle after April 1, 2016 that contained any mercury-added wheel weight or wheel balancing product. 

Medication Disposal Demonstration Program

This bill would require expired, unwanted, or unused medications to be properly disposed of in order to prevent accidental ingestion and/or unintended environmental harm.

Polystyrene Waste Reduction

Source Seperated Recyclables

 

Committee Members 

Bodhi Piedmont-Fleischmann (Chair)
Ken Armellino
Savannah Betkowski
Maggie Clarke
Martha Clarvoe
Jeff Edwards
Ted Osborne
Peter Pettit
Laura Pettit
Andrew Radin
Rich Schiafo