APRIL 2021 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 17
POINT OF VIEW
RECYCLING PROPOSAL A BLOW TO NEWSPAPERS
BY MICHELLE REA
Executive Director,
New York Press Association
New York State Sen. Todd Kaminsky and
a host of colleagues have introduced legislation
that shifts the responsibility and
costs of recycling from municipalities to
the producers of packaging and paper
products. The legislation is called the
Extended Producer Responsibility Act,
and in other countries around the world,
newspapers have been exempted from
these recycling initiatives. New York
should follow suit.
In Canada, this product-focused approach
is referred to as product stewardship.
And while each Canadian province has
adopted different stewardship models,
there are strong similarities in how
newspapers are treated. Their approach
is consistent with how newspapers are
managed in recycling regimes all over
the world. Newspapers have been treated
differently in recognition of the fact that
they provide a public benefit, that they
can make a significant contribution to
public education on recycling, and that
they are not a packaged good like other
materials in the recycling stream.
Newspapers perform an important role
in our democracy, and they are not a consumable
product: There are no contents
and no packaging — the two are indistinguishable.
Treating newspapers like
packaged goods discriminates unfairly
against newspapers — the packaged
goods industry makes no investment in
contents of their packages, just the packaging
itself.
Further, newspapers have been good
stewards of the environment for decades.
In 1989 New York’s newspaper industry
entered into a voluntary agreement with
New York State to increase their usage of
recycled newsprint to 40 percent by the
year 2000. Recycling damages the fiber in
newsprint, so a minimum of 50 percent
new fiber is required to maintain quality.
Newsprint with too little new fiber
tears when the presses are running and
causes the ink to blot.
Newsprint accounts for less than 7 percent
of solid waste in a typical community.
Newspapers are environmentally
sound — publishers use the remains of
what other industries discard, recycled
fiber. Newspapers are compostable (you
can use them in your vegetable garden),
they are remanufactured (used to produce
home insulation and packaging materials).
They are reusable, biodegradable, and the
ink is nontoxic, made from organic materials
such as soy and linseed oil.
The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency reported the following recycling
rates for 2018: 8.5 percent plastic, 17.2
percent aluminum, 18.2 percent rubber/
leather, 25 percent glass, and 68.2 percent
newspapers.
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We are committed to delivering the highest quality patient care and
will continue to do so during these circumstances.
• Routine patient temperature checks
• All staff equipped with proper PPE
• Limited appointments to avoid wait time and crowding
• HEPA Air Filtration Systems throughout dental facility
• Entire office is thoroughly cleaned and sanitized every night
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Newspapers should be exempted from
this legislation because they already recycle
at a rate far higher than any other
recyclable product.
The proposed legislation will not
increase or improve the recycling of
newspapers — it will simply shift the
cost of recycling from municipalities to
newspapers. Newspapers are already
suffering from revenue declines caused
by Covid-19 and Big Tech platforms.
Burdening newspapers with the cost of
recycling will result in layoffs, further
eroding citizen access to essential local
news and information.
Newspapers are good citizens, and they
are cheerleaders and watchdogs for the
communities they serve. New York’s
newspapers will be pleased to enter
into a voluntary agreement to support,
promote, and educate readers and community
leaders about the importance
of recycling. New York’s legislators
should consider the devastating impact
this legislation will have on newspapers,
and subsequently, citizens’ access to local
journalism.
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