A new packaging bill to reduce the amount of plastic trash in New York, the Plastic Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Bill, became stalled in the State Assembly at the time of legislature's adjournment in June. The bill was introduced in both the Assembly and Senate last year, and it did pass the Senate this year. Recent articles in The New Republic and Exxon Knews detail earlier efforts in the New York state legislature to pass it, and the resistance to it that the oil and chemical industries have provided.  The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act would decrease the amount of plastic packaging by half over the next 12 years and significantly decrease the number of toxic chemicals that could be used in its production.  It would also shift the cost of managing plastic waste from municipal governments and taxpayers to the producers of these plastic containers and packaging. Read https://www.exxonknews.org/p/why-the-oil-and-chemical-lobby-is. 

The New Republic article https://newrepublic.com/article/179434/plastic-recycling-legislation-new-york details the history of the plastics industry in setting up an unmanageable and misleading  plastics recycling code system giving the false impression that plastic bottles, containers, and packaging with the chasing arrows and numbers insignias could all be recycled. In actuality, only a small fraction of this plastic currently is recycled (estimated at 5-6% in the US), in large due to the lack of the technology to recycle of almost all types of plastic in an economic way and the fact that so many manufactured plastics are mixed of mixed types.  The New York Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act would,"... require companies with a net annual income of more than $1 million to reduce their plastic packaging by half over the next 12 years, while regulating some of the more damaging, less viable forms of recycling. It includes a provision for what’s known as extended producer responsibility, requiring companies to pay a fee on plastic products, which will flow toward municipal governments to help with recycling and waste management efforts." The Plastics Industry Association has called the bill “impractical and unworkable”. The American Chemistry Council has been particularly active in lobbying lawmakers to drop the bill’s proposed ban on chemical, or so-called “advanced,” recycling, in which plastics are heated, broken down, and turned into either new plastics or most of the time, fuel. 

The bill was re-introduced in this year's session in the Senate, as S4246b (and sponsored by Bill Harckham-D, WF, 40th District). After the Assembly reconvened in May after a brief recess, the bill saw activity in its rules committee and ways and means committee, but was never advanced to the Assembly floor for passage. The Assembly adjourned in June for the year. Unless it is taken up in a special session (not planned at this time), the bill would need to be re-introduced in both houses next year.  According to a staff member for Anna Kelles (D-Ithaca), preference could be given next year for speedier passage of this bill from committees it had already passed. The Assembly bill was sponsored by Deborah J. Glick (D-Manhattan) and had 76 co-sponsors.