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Plus, what happens when the next disaster strikes? \n","2648e09c-b888-4823-9cb4-2e2d8084349e","On the Media","e68b6750-ddde-4b56-8121-be01a1922ff5","https://image.simplecastcdn.com/images/8b1b8b29-56db-46d2-aea3-8dcc4660fdab/89f11bc1-324e-4df8-b481-e47455f990c0/otmamericanemergency3000x3000final042126.jpg","2026-05-22T17:41:42.000Z","https://wnyc.org/browse/shows/episode/simplecast/2648e09c-b888-4823-9cb4-2e2d8084349e","/browse/shows/episode/simplecast/2648e09c-b888-4823-9cb4-2e2d8084349e","https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/mgln.ai/e/14/prfx.byspotify.com/e/dts.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/waaa.wnyc.org/e68b6750-ddde-4b56-8121-be01a1922ff5/episodes/2648e09c-b888-4823-9cb4-2e2d8084349e/audio/128/default.mp3?awCollectionId=e68b6750-ddde-4b56-8121-be01a1922ff5&awEpisodeId=2648e09c-b888-4823-9cb4-2e2d8084349e",3091,"2026-05-22T13:41:42-04:00",{"slug":388,"type":335,"simplecastId":377},"ep-4-american-emergency-the-movement-to-kill-fema",{"brand":390},{"title":378,"logoImage":391},{"url":392},"https://image.simplecastcdn.com/images/2c9187d6-9dff-4257-bc55-469cf13afd48/8f823e1a-b8cc-4a76-8224-e2a4df4ae1f8/otm-showsquare-2025-3000x3000.jpg",{"id":394,"title":395,"uuid":396,"type":397,"listingTitle":395,"tease":398,"listingDescription":398,"listingImage":399,"socialTitle":395,"socialDescription":398,"socialImage":401,"seoTitle":395,"searchDescription":395,"showId":337,"showSlug":337,"description":398,"image":402,"link":403,"cmsSource":339,"sortDate":404,"meta":405,"legacyId":396,"publicationDate":406,"updatedDate":408,"tags":409,"url":282,"shareUrl":410,"body":411,"rawBody":411,"audio":412,"hasAudio":344,"estimatedDuration":413,"show":414,"showTitle":336,"headers":416,"transcript":419,"episodeNumber":420,"seasonNumber":297,"guid":421,"isPublished":344},787523816,"Can New York State Get 'Beyond Plastic?'","660f1770-9001-4736-b44f-847b0a5b2b15","full","Former EPA admin Judith Enck discusses her support for a new law on recycling and packaging.",{"url":400},"https://image.simplecastcdn.com/images/1466ed7a-1b46-4edc-9bfc-91ff8f61ec3e/4f495141-6ab5-46f6-ab66-b23db38f8377/2018_01_19recyclingrockyjennifer_wikimedia.jpg",{"url":400},{"url":400},"/browse/shows/episode/simplecast/660f1770-9001-4736-b44f-847b0a5b2b15","2026-05-26T12:16:15-04:00",{"firstPublishedAt":406,"slug":407,"simplecastId":396,"type":397},"2026-05-26T16:16:15.000Z","can-new-york-state-get-beyond-plastic","2026-05-26T19:40:15.000Z",[],"https://wnyc.org/browse/shows/episode/simplecast/660f1770-9001-4736-b44f-847b0a5b2b15","\u003Cp>New York State lawmakers are considering the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act. \u003Cstrong>Judith Enck\u003C/strong>, founder of Beyond Plastics, professor at Bennington College, former EPA Region 2 administrator and author of \u003Ca href=\"https://thenewpress.org/books/the-problem-with-plastic/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003Ci>The Problem with Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It’s Too Late\u003C/i>\u003C/a> (The New Press, 2025), talks about why she is advocating for its passage and what the bill would do if it becomes law.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>\u003Ci>Photo: A recycling bin in New York City. (Credit: RockyJennifer/Wikimedia Commons \u003C/i>\u003Ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003Ci>CC BY-SA 4.0\u003C/i>\u003C/a>\u003Ci>)\u003C/i>\u003C/p>","https://waaa.wnyc.org/9ad3f75f-0bb4-4437-bf95-5e4140741c91/episodes/660f1770-9001-4736-b44f-847b0a5b2b15/audio/128/default.mp3?awCollectionId=9ad3f75f-0bb4-4437-bf95-5e4140741c91&awEpisodeId=660f1770-9001-4736-b44f-847b0a5b2b15",2149,{"title":336,"url":415},"https://api.simplecast.com/podcasts/9ad3f75f-0bb4-4437-bf95-5e4140741c91",{"brand":417},{"title":336,"logoImage":418},{"url":352},"\n \n  \u003Cp>\n   [music]\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. As Albany lawmakers continue to negotiate the hydra-headed budget that is now almost two months late, the fiscal year began on April 1st, we've been talking about the many non-budget policy items that they're debating, right, as part of the deal? Here's a really interesting one about a concept we've talked about on this show for years that actually might get through this time as legislation. The concept is polluter pays.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Now, this bill goes after the packaging that your stuff comes wrapped in when you buy it. It's called the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act, and it would make big companies cut their single-use packaging by 30% over 12 years. It's got that specific timeline, cut their single-use packaging by 30% over 12 years, as well as ban some of the most toxic chemicals in that packaging, and put the cost of dealing with the waste on the producers instead of on the taxpayers. That's the polluter pays.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   This isn't a new idea. It's been kicking around Albany even for three years, passing in the State Senate twice, but stalling both times in the Assembly, and it's a long-held principle of environmentalism. Polluter pays. Now, as lawmakers vote through a budget that rolls back New York's 2019 landmark climate law in certain respects, almost certainly even though that's not done yet, but you've been hearing that's going to be a part of it, advocates believe this could finally be the year that at least this environmental principle gets put into law.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Here to argue the case for this big plastic reduction bill is Judith Enck, founder of Beyond Plastics. That's an advocacy group, a professor at Bennington College, and the former EPA Region 2, that's New York Region, plus Puerto Rico administrator. Judith Enck, always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Judith Enck: Brian, thank you so much for having me. I forgot to add in my bio, unlike the high-profile Senator Chris Murphy, I also have a book out called The Problem with Plastic, published by The New Press. If listeners want to do a deep dive on the many, many problems with plastics, it's all in that book.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Brian Lehrer: Some of our listeners know you've been coming on with us for years to talk about plastics from time to time. You and I led a monitor your single-use plastics experiment with our listeners that many people participated in. That was really interesting. Just by making people aware of how many times, without thinking, they pass through a single-use plastic and threw it out, I think and hopefully made people find ways around that use more frequently than maybe they did before. Go ahead and say the name of your book again.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Judith Enck: Sure. It's The Problem with Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It's Too Late by Judith Enck and Adam Mahoney. You can get it wherever you buy books. I urge folks to buy it from independent bookstores.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Brian Lehrer: All right, so what is the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act? What would it actually do?\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Judith Enck: Well, as you said, it requires a gradual reduction in all single-use packaging, 30% spaced out over 12 years, and then the remaining packaging would need to be recycled by 2055. The bill prohibits the very polluting false solution called chemical recycling from counting toward recycling targets, and we can explain that. The bill bans some of the most toxic chemicals used in packaging, including PFAS, lead, mercury, formaldehyde. All of that is currently used in single-use packaging that touches our food and our beverages.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   The bill also will save a lot of tax dollars because, first, we're going to see less packaging. That's the real economic savings. Less stuff for waste haulers to pick up, process, and send out of the city. Then secondly, there's a modest new fee on packaging, with that money going to the city of New York and all local governments in New York to help financially support waste reduction and recycling programs. The sponsors have been borderline heroic.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   I cannot say enough good things about Assemblymember Deborah Glick from Manhattan, who is retiring this year, unfortunately, Senator Pete Harckham from Westchester, Putnam counties. They have been working night and day to get this bill through. It is on the Assembly floor, it is on the Senate floor, but it is facing ferocious opposition from the companies that make the packaging and then also the trade associations that sell chemicals and fossil fuels.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Beyond Plastics did a report last fall because it really felt to me, being in the legislature the final days of session, that there were a lot of industry opposition lobbyists, most than I've ever seen before. As Senator Pete Harckham has said, it was Washington, D.C. style lobbying. We simply counted who was registered to lobby against the bill, and it was 106 lobbyists against the bill, 23 in favor.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Just from my presence in the Capitol this legislative session, I think there's many more lobbyists opposing the bill and many more PR firms opposing the bill, so we have our work cut out for us. Just as a funny aside, every morning when I wake up, I listen to Patti Smith's song, the People Have the Power. That is the only way we're going to get this through, is with people power\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Brian Lehrer: Listeners, if you people would like to power a phone call or a text message for Judith Enck on this bill in Albany, or any concept that you think might relate to her book about plastics, 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. You can call, or you could text. I will give you the arguments that they're using in that well-funded lobbying. Some of them say this will raise prices at the grocery store for everyone. I don't know if that pertains to the packaging reduction parts of it that you were just describing, but the polluter pays concept, that's a common pushback on that.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   If the company has to pay instead of you put it out with your trash or your municipal recycling or town recycling, if the company has to pay for that in advance, they're just going to pass on the cost and the price of the good. Address that.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Judith Enck: Sure. This approach used to be known as extended producer responsibility. That has been in effect in Europe and in Canadian provinces for decades, and now seven states in the US. There's absolutely no evidence that paying these fees increases consumer costs. Then logically, if you're making less packaging, that could potentially be a savings for companies. You're right, Brian. This is the argument that lobbyists are trying to scare legislators with. We're all sensitive to consumer prices. I mean, a trip to the supermarket, you're paying more and more.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   A lot of that has to do with tariffs and federal policies that have nothing to do with state environmental laws. The very well respected publication Consumer Reports has weighed in in support of the Glick-Harckham bill, saying they do not anticipate any increase in price. When it comes to packaging, when you buy a product at the store, only 2% of the cost is for packaging.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   If you're buying a bottle of ketchup, 98% of the cost is for the ketchup, and 2% is the packaging. We do not believe that there is likely to be an increase in cost, but there definitely is going to be a benefit to taxpayers who are currently paying to get rid of all of the single-use packaging. Right now, companies like Amazon, McDonald's, Coke, and Pepsi are getting a free ride because we pay to get rid of all of this stuff, and they have no incentive to reduce packaging or make it more easily recyclable. That's why, for instance, the city of New York is very supportive of this bill.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   I stood with the new sanitation commissioner, Greg Anderson, at South Street Seaport about a week and a half ago, supporting this bill. We've got support from local governments and New York State Association of Counties from all across the state because it's really a matter of who pays. The big companies that make the packaging, or taxpayers.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Brian Lehrer: Another argument from the industry, the plastics and chemical companies, their counter pitch is something called chemical recycling or advanced recycling. I guess they're for that rather than this because it would probably be cheaper for them. I'm presuming. What is that? It looks like neither you nor this bill counts it as real recycling. Chemical recycling.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Judith Enck: Exactly. This bill doesn't ban chemical recycling or advanced recycling. It just says it can't count toward your recycling requirements in the statute. Chemical recycling is something that the plastics and petrochemical companies have been trying since the 1980s. It's mostly taking waste plastic, heating it at a high temperature, using a process called pyrolysis, and then creating low-grade fossil fuel. The last thing we need. Then there's one or two companies that attempt to turn waste plastic into new plastic. Again, the last thing we need.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   It is a false solution. We did an in-depth study of chemical recycling along with International Pollution Elimination Network couple years ago. I kept hearing about this, and I wanted to find out how many of their facilities actually exist. We only found 11, and since our report came out 2 and a half years ago, 3 of the 11 have shut down. They are not economical, they require big government subsidies, and they're polluting.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   They're often cited in low-income communities, environmental justice communities. Chemical recycling is merely a talking point for plastic lobbyists who want to say, \"No need to reduce plastics. We can do chemical recycling.\" If you are generous and say all of these 11 chemical recycling facilities were operating, they were only be handling about 1% of plastic waste in the United States. It's not really a solution. It's just a talking point.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Brian Lehrer: Listener writes, \"I'm curious if this bill will address plastic packaging specifically for produce in grocery stores. So many fruits and vegetables are packaged in these huge plastic boxes that seem unnecessary, and would love to know if those would be eliminated.\"\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Judith Enck: It does address packaging in supermarkets of all packaging. It also addresses transportation packaging. There's a lot we don't see. If you go to the back of a supermarket or a big chain drugstore, you'll see pallets wrapped in plastic. For a lot of companies, they're going to achieve the very, I think, reasonable goals in the bill by also dealing with transportation, packaging, for instance, reusable pallets, and a new pallet design that doesn't require you to wrap everything. I agree with your listener. A walk through a supermarket produce section can be really unnerving.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   I was in a supermarket with my husband a few days ago. We really needed zucchini for a recipe, but it came on a plastic tray wrapped in shrink wrap. I just said, \"No, we can't. We just can't.\" The way this bill will work is if you buy a loose zucchini, the vegetable of choice in our house this weekend, you don't pay a fee because there's no packaging on it, but if you buy a zucchini wrapped in plastic, you pay a fee.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   It's an eco-modulated fee. That's just a $15 word for saying if it's no packaging, no fee. If it's refillable or reusable, no fee. If it's cardboard, a modest fee. If it's non-recyclable plastic or multi-material packaging, a high fee. We think that's going to incentivize big stores and brands to basically allow us to buy a single zucchini or avocado, or my favorite example is when you see a hand of bananas that comes in its own packaging, but now they're being sold in plastic bags or plastic trays. This bill, if it were to become law, I think, will result in significant changes in overpackaging in supermarkets.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Brian Lehrer: Do you save on loose zucchini bill? No, that's not what it's called.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Judith Enck: [laughs] It's not a good acronym.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Brian Lehrer: [laughs] If you're just joining us, my guest is Anti-Plastics Advocate Judith Enck. We're talking about a bill that may, in fact, make it through the New York State legislature as part of the budget deal that's in the works. It's called the Pack--\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Judith Enck: After the budget.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Brian Lehrer: Oh, after the budget. This would be taken up separately before the end of the term?\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Judith Enck: Yes.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Brian Lehrer: At the end of June?\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Judith Enck: Yes, and that's the worry. The legislature is still working on the budget, and they are scheduled to adjourn by June 4th. If they wrap up the budget by the end of this week, that leaves only five legislative days to deal with all of the other non-budget bills before the legislature, so our big concern is that we're going to run out of time.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   It's good that the bill is on the floor in both houses, but opponents to the bill will spend hours debating it on the floor. This is a race against the clock. I will say that when the leadership in the Assembly and the Senate, Speaker Heastie, and Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins, when they want to get something done, they get it done. All is not lost, but it is a little worrisome that the budget is not yet done. This is not in the budget. This is a standalone bill.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Brian Lehrer: Sorry to be wrong about that. This bill is called the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act. My guest is Judith Enck, who also has a new book called The Problem with Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It's Too Late. We're taking calls and texts from you at 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. Here's a text. It says, \"When I was a kid, everything was packed in either cans, bottles, glass, cardboard, or wax paper. I remember potato chips in wax paper. Milk cartons were wax. Why did this fall out of favor?\"\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Judith Enck: Good points. None of us voted for more plastic, but companies felt that plastic was cheaper, so they shifted on their own. I don't think plastic really is cheap because you and I get stuck with disposal of plastics. The plastic recycling rate, by the way, is only 5% to 6%. We should keep recycling paper, metal, glass, cardboard, compost your food and yard waste. We need to be honest with consumers that plastics recycling has been abysmal failure. Also, 16,000 different chemicals are used to make plastic, and that's not cheap.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   I spent a good chunk of this weekend monitoring the situation in Garden Grove, California, outside of LA, where there was a large tank that was at risk of exploding. 50,000 people were evacuated. What is in this tank that is still at risk but hopefully will not explode? It's a chemical called methyl methacrylate that is used to make plastics. Not plastic packaging, but plastics made and used in the aerospace industry.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   What's the cost of, God forbid, if there's is a catastrophic failure of the tank or leaking of the tank into groundwater? What is the cost of that? What's the cost of 50,000 people being out of their homes for four days? None of that seems to get factored in when companies say, \"We use plastic because it's cheap.\" From a health perspective, with everything we're learning about microplastics in the human body, from an ecological perspective, and from a taxpayer perspective, I would say plastic is anything but cheap.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Brian Lehrer: Walter in Ridgefield, Connecticut, you're on WNYC with Judith Enck. Hi, Walter.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Walter: Hi. I was just wondering, what is the size of the modest fee?\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Judith Enck: The modest fee is determined by industry.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Walter: Who gets to pay?\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Judith Enck: Local governments get the fee to fund recycling and waste reduction, reuse programs. I want to explain how the fee is determined and why I'm saying modest. Local governments will say how much money they need to improve local recycling or to start waste reduction, reuse programs. What I mean by that is installing water fountains in public parks, giving the New York City School District money to install dishwashing equipment so our students are served on real dishes and not single-use disposables.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Basically, and this is a common practice, when I worked at the EPA, there was a program where local governments were essentially polled and asked, \"How much money do you need for a particular program?\" In that case, it was drinking water and wastewater. They would do that, asking local governments how much money is needed to improve recycling and waste reduction, and then back into a number of what the statewide need is.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Then, an industry-run private organization called a Producer Responsibility Organization, working with the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, determines the annual number and what company pays what fee to cover the local government costs. As Brian has been saying, it is a very classic polluter pay program.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Brian Lehrer: Walter, you add another part to your question, right?\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Walter: Yes. Who actually pays the fee, and what is the fee used for? Where does it go?\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Judith Enck: The companies that make the packaging pay the fee. If you're a small business making less than $5 million a year, you are exempt. Then the money goes to local governments to fund waste reduction, reuse, and recycling programs.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Brian Lehrer: What Walter told our screener, but he didn't say it on the air, is, \"Isn't the tax ultimately a burden on the consumer?\" We have another one like this in a text. I know I asked you a version of this question early on, but a number of people are coming back to it. Listener writes, \"When you pass something to the corporation, you are effectively passing the cost onto the consumer in terms of higher pricing. It affects those in lower-income brackets more than the wealthy.\" Address those concerns.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Judith Enck: There's nothing you can do to prevent a company from passing additional costs on. Again, the cost of packaging is 2% of a total product cost, and then the fees, I believe, will be modest. There's no evidence from Europe or Canada, where this program has been established, that there's been an increase in cost.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   The listener is correct. Lower-income people will pay for groceries, and it's a larger percentage of budget as opposed to if you're a millionaire or a billionaire, but I don't believe that this will be a significant increase, and we will see taxpayer savings. Right now, it's a question of who pays. Companies like Amazon and McDonald's, or you and I as taxpayers.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Brian Lehrer: You mentioned earlier that a very small percentage of plastics get recycled. Listener writes, \"There's a PBS documentary about plastics in Dupont. China stopped taking our plastics. Too dirty.\" Is that a thing? Or even with plastics that qualify for recycling, talk about where it goes. If that's a true thing-\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Judith Enck: Sure.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Brian Lehrer: -about China used to take it to do whatever with, but now they don't, put some meat on those bones.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Judith Enck: Yes, that's definitely a thing. For years, US would export waste plastic to China, but it was too dirty. There were too many non-recyclables in the shipping containers, and China warned the US for a really long time and said, \"We do not want dirty plastics. We do not want non-recyclable plastics,\" which is most plastic. After numerous warnings, China stopped accepting plastics from the US and the EU.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   It's called the China shield policy, something like that, something shield. I want to emphasize that even when China was accepting waste plastic from the US, we never got to double digits on the plastics recycling rate. That's because fundamentally, most plastics are not recyclable. They're made from too many different chemicals, too many different types of plastic, and too many different colors.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   If you have, for instance, a bright plastic, hard plastic detergent bottle to do laundry with, and you have a thin plastic film bag for bread in your kitchen, those two plastics cannot get recycled together. They're too different. Fundamentally, that's why the plastic recycling rate has been so low and why chemical recycling mostly will not work, because the waste stream is just too heterogeneous. Yet, consumers are confused because the plastics industry has spent millions of dollars telling us, \"Don't worry about all your single-use plastics. Just toss it in the recycling bin.\"\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   In fact, the situation is so serious that the California Attorney General, Rob Bonta, in September of 2024, sued ExxonMobil for making deceptive statements about plastics recycling. Beyond Plastics just did-- we released an investigative report last week focusing on Starbucks, because if you buy a Starbucks cold drink, your Starbucks store probably has a bin that says, \"Plastics recycling.\" Just toss your empty container and cap into that bin.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Well, we put electronic trackers into some of the empty plastic cups in Starbucks and followed these cups all over the country, and did not find one of them going to a recycling facility. In fact, a Starbucks in Brooklyn, where people dutifully put their empty Starbucks cups into a recycling bin in a Brooklyn store, went all the way to a landfill in Ohio.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   People want to do the right thing, but they are not given honest information about the pitfalls of plastics recycling, which is why this bill is so important, because it will reduce all single-use packaging, including plastic packaging, by 30%. Reduction is the solution to the plastic pollution problem, not recycling.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Brian Lehrer: You remind me with that answer of a tip you gave our listeners on the show a few years ago that I try to live by now, which is don't dump all your hard plastics into your plastics recycling bin, if you have that in your city or your town, because you have to look at whether they are the exact numbers, like Plastic Number 2, Number 5, whatever, that your city or town actually recycles.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   If you put the other plastics in there with it, even though you think you're doing a good thing because you're putting more plastic in a recycling stream, you're really polluting the recycling stream with unrecyclable material. That's going to make the rest of the actual recyclable stuff less recyclable. Did I say that right?\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Judith Enck: Absolutely right, and thank you for remembering that. To be honest, Brian, I love recycling. I started my town's recycling program in Upstate New York. Plastic recycling has been an abysmal failure, and that's why this bill is so important. We are working round the clock to get it adopted by June 4th, when the legislature is scheduled to adjourn, because we need less plastic and not deceptive advertising about plastics being recycled or being subject to chemical recycling. We just have to make less.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   None of us have voted for more plastic. The trajectory is that plastic production is going to increase. We're loading our ocean with plastics. I want to highly recommend a Netflix movie called The Plastic Detox that deals with the health implications of plastics in our bodies because we're all breathing in and swallowing microplastics. Scientists have identified microplastics in human blood, our brain, arteries, our liver, our kidneys, human placenta, testicles, breast milk. This is a pretty serious situation.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   I'm hoping that both the health concerns around plastics and the opportunity for significant taxpayer savings will inspire the State Assembly and the State Senate to stand up to all of these special interest lobbyists and finally get this bill done this year. You mentioned in the introduction, this has been a really bad year for the environment in Albany. The governor weakened the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Laws like moving to electric school buses have been delayed by five years. The Trump administration has launched an all-out assault on environmental protection. My former agency, the EPA, has been cut by a third, raising questions. Maybe we should have more inspections at places like Garden Grove, California, where toxic chemicals are being stored. That's what the EPA does, so it makes no sense to be cutting their budget. Makes no sense to be denying climate change.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   My big question for Governor Hochul and the state lawmakers are, given the Trump assault on environmental protection, what is New York State's response? So far, New York State's response has been to weaken climate laws, weaken the State Environmental Quality Review Act, and not really supplement environmental protections that we benefit from in the context of this federal assault on environmental policies. The least the legislature can do is adopt this Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act by June 4th, so there's something we can point to that benefits our health and the environment.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Brian Lehrer: You know that Governor Hochul says she's all for the climate law that was passed in 2019, but implementing it on the current timetable would just push electricity prices or general energy prices up too far, too fast, when we're in an affordability crisis in New York State. She wants the bill to remain just on a slower timeline. What would you say to her about that particular argument?\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Judith Enck: With all due respect to the governor, she's incorrect on that because this locks us into more fossil fuel infrastructure. Fossil fuels, whether it's pipelines or power plants, are more expensive than energy efficiency or clean renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and geothermal. I think the governor has read the economics of this wrong, and in New York, where we were so hard hit by Hurricane Sandy, where Canadian wildfires have damaged our air quality the past few summers.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   An issue I find astonishing and so alarming is people dying in basement apartments because of extreme urban flooding. All of that is connected to climate change. The governor knows that. I think it was a huge mistake to not only slow down implementation of the state's climate law, but also fast-track new fossil fuel power plants that the New York-- I shouldn't say fast track, but New York DEC rejected some fossil fuel pipelines power plants, and the governor directed her state regulators to reverse their previous positions. I think that all is going to result in actually higher utility prices for New Yorkers.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Brian Lehrer: Before you go, Judith. This bill has passed the State Senate in Albany twice now, but it's never made it through the Assembly. Now, there are Democratic supermajorities in both houses of the New York State Legislature, so why does it keep dying in Carl Heastie's Assembly?\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Judith Enck: That is the question of the day. The bill makes it through all the committees in the Assembly. It's on the Assembly floor. As you say, there's a supermajority among Democrats. The only thing I can explain is the incredible political influence of special interests. Those 106 lobbyists are all over Albany. They make campaign contributions. Beyond Plastics does not make campaign contributions.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   The sponsor, Deborah Glick, is working really hard. She's made 39 major amendments to the bill this session to address some of the business concerns, but this is a fierce David versus Goliath battle, and we won't know the outcome until June 4th.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Brian Lehrer: The end of the legislative session. Last question from a listener who texts, \"How can we show support or help get this bill put in place? For people who are interested in it at that level, what would you tell them?\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Judith Enck: If you live in New York, call your assemblymember and urge them to support Assembly Bill 1749A, and call your state senator to support Senate Bill 1464A. This is an election year. The New York State Legislature has very little to point to in terms of environmental accomplishments this year. I think just scores of people all over the state calling their assemblymember and their senator in that order can make a real difference.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Lawmakers rarely hear from constituents, so no time left for letters. Just call. Call them every day and ask them to support the bill, and what are they doing to convince Speaker Carl Heastie to bring the bill to the floor for a vote?\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Brian Lehrer: Judith Enck is founder of the group Beyond Plastics. She's a professor at Bennington College, former EPA administrator, Federal EPA Administrator, for New York, and she also has a new book called The Problem With Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It's Too Late. Thank you very much for joining us, Judith.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Judith Enck: Thanks a million, Brian. Appreciate it.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   Copyright © 2026 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website\n   \u003Ca href=\"https://www.wnyc.org/terms/\">\n    terms of use\n   \u003C/a>\n   at\n   \u003Ca href=\"https://www.wnyc.org/\">\n    www.wnyc.org\n   \u003C/a>\n   for further information.\n  \u003C/p>\n  \u003Cp>\n   New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.\n  \u003C/p>\n \n\n",2366,"5b23dcdd-a8ff-42bb-98e7-c869fbeb8bc6",{"show":423,"episodes":425},{"title":336,"slug":424,"cmsSource":339},"brian-lehrer-show",{"data":426,"meta":427},[],{},{"id":429,"title":336,"uuid":430,"type":431,"listingTitle":336,"tease":432,"listingDescription":432,"preventSearchIndexing":283,"socialTitle":336,"socialDescription":432,"seoTitle":336,"searchDescription":336,"description":432,"image":433,"link":443,"cmsSource":299,"publicationDate":444,"url":282,"shareUrl":445,"section":446,"body":282,"rawBody":447,"hasAudio":283,"aboutModule":448,"linkedDataSource":459,"topper":464,"canDownloadEpisodes":344,"commentId":430,"meta":466},166704,"dfacadc8-6639-40bc-8d59-c9a2d4aa2a25","show","Join us for The Brian Lehrer Show, weekdays from 10:00AM - 12:00PM on WNYC.",{"id":434,"title":435,"description":287,"width":436,"height":436,"createdAt":437,"focalPointX":282,"focalPointY":282,"focalPointWidth":282,"focalPointHeight":282,"fileSize":438,"fileHash":439,"alt":440,"caption":287,"credit":287,"creditLink":287,"file":441,"usageLimitations":287,"expiryDate":282,"collection":297,"uploadedByUser":442},355260,"BL Show Logo",800,"2026-02-03T12:04:22.655076-05:00",5441,"78a8f061ff78d46626a9dccf58f55f3f4fe27931","The Brian Lehrer Show written in white text against a red background","https://images-prod.gothamist.com/original_images/BL.png",14,"/","2026-04-01T13:26:13.764Z","https://wnyc.org/",{},"Wednesday:Dan Goldman, US representative (D, NY-10), and Brad Lander,  former NYC comptroller and former mayoral candidate, discuss key issues  as they campaign in the June primary election to be the Democratic  nominee for Congress for New York's 10th congressional district.On Tuesday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani unveiled his plan to  build 200,000 affordable units and preserve another 200,000 over the  next decade. David Brand, housing reporter for WNYC and  Gothamist, relays the standout details of the Mamdani administration's  \"Block by Block: The Housing Plan for a New Era.\"David B. Oppenheimer, clinical  professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, co-director  of the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality &  Anti-Discrimination Law and the author of The Diversity Principle: The Story of a Transformative Idea (Yale  University Press, 2026), argues that the idea that there is value in  diversity in education and politics has a long history—and that attacks  on the concept today are misguided.Jordan Lauf, producer for All  Of It and its book club, Get Lit with All Of It, introduces this summer  reading contest from All Of It and Get Lit, six books across six  categories.",[449,453],{"type":450,"value":451,"id":452},"rich_text","\u003Cp data-block-key=\"7pbv7\">Brian Lehrer leads the conversation about what matters most now in local and national politics, our own communities and our lives.\u003C/p>\u003Cp data-block-key=\"8kml1\">To comment on a particular conversation:\u003C/p>\u003Cul>\u003Cli data-block-key=\"2juav\">Call 212-433-WNYC (-9692) to join on the air\u003C/li>\u003Cli data-block-key=\"c1rgq\">Contact: \u003Ca href=\"mailto:blshow@wnyc.org\">blshow@wnyc.org\u003C/a>\u003C/li>\u003C/ul>\u003Cp data-block-key=\"av4np\">\u003Ca href=\"https://link.podtrac.com/b6yi2wer\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Subscribe\u003C/a> wherever you get your podcasts.\u003C/p>\u003Cp data-block-key=\"8q65q\">\u003Ci>Support for The Brian Lehrer Show is provided in part by The Endeavor Foundation.\u003C/i>\u003C/p>\u003Cp data-block-key=\"843g\">\u003Ci>Transcripts are posted to individual segment pages as they become available.\u003C/i>\u003C/p>","aab7e6f8-ef89-43e3-9039-b97f8448f610",{"type":454,"value":455,"id":458},"code",{"title":456,"code":457},"Connect with Us","Connect with us!\u003Cbr>\u003Cbr>\r\n\u003C!--Instgram Social Icon-->\r\n\u003Cdiv style=\"display: inline-flex; vertical-align: middle; gap:12px; padding: 0 6px;\">\r\n\u003Ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/brianlehrershow/?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener 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