Change the World

Become a fan of your local legislature

Plastic. Who doesn’t hate all that plastic that wraps just about everything in our world? The oceans are clogged with it. It’s in our water, our food, our bodies. It’s a sizeable chunk of NYS’s greenhouse gas emissions (About 12%). You know how much of it gets recycled? A measly 6%.

And in New York State, we have a golden chance to get rid of some of the horrid stuff.

The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act would require companies to cut their single-use packaging IN HALF in 12 years and redesign what’s left to make it truly recyclable, as well as to ban 15 of the most toxic chemicals currently used in packaging including PFOA, vinyl chloride, benzene, toluene, phthalates, bisphenols, lead and other heavy metals.

The bill would also save NYS taxpayers money by putting the burden of paying to deal with packaging waste where it belongs - on the companies responsible for creating it.

This is a bill that’s inching its way through the long process of becoming a law. It’s not even up for a vote yet, the hope is that it will soon be introduced. But it won’t get there by itself.

I think it’s safe to say that virtually no environmental legislation would ever have gotten across the plate without the public—you and me—complaining and demanding and shoving it along. Sadly, about 90% of us completely ignore the local legislative process. It just sounds so boring, so unimportant, when all eyes are on the drama of Biden/Trump—who has time to follow the fate of another bill in the state legislature, S4246-b/A5322-b, just another local ordinance on packaging reduction, of all dull subjects.

It’s that 10 per cent of people who pay attention who, quite literally, can change the world. And I like to think of us as fans.

Fans are lovers. They’re the ones who love something so much that they’re willing to inconvenience themselves for it. They’re the people who turn out to root for their favorite team when it’s nineteen degrees and sleeting. Fans line up on the sidewalk during a heat wave for the new Star Wars movie, or spend six hours on-line to get Taylor Swift tickets, or stay up till midnight on a work night to root for their pet film to win the Oscar. Fans care.  

No matter where you live, there’s a worthwhile bill that’s struggling to turn into a law. A good way to discover one that strikes your fancy is to join an advocacy group like the Sierra Club—their local chapters do a very good job of alerting you to the hot local issues. Adopt an issue like you would a football team or a rock star. Root for it. Cheer it on. Learn all the gossipy details about it. And talk talk talk about it.

Make it a point to call, write, bug, nag your legislators. Calling is the most effective, and the hardest for me to do. I’m slightly phone-phobic, and it’s a pain in the neck to make the effort. (But I did it, and I must say the legislative staff members I talked to were very pleasant and chatty.)

Then go on fan-boying, or fan-girling. Bore your family, students, book club members. Annoy your neighbors. Post on social media. (Never underestimate the power of social media.)

And here’s where letters to the editor can really do some good. I’m a passionate letter-to-the-editor writer, but sometimes I despair as newspapers seem to be fading into oblivion. But you know one of the diehard audiences for Letters to the Editor? Local politicians and their staffs. It’s a way for them to find out what the voters are angry enough about to bother writing a letter.

(The Packaging Reduction Act, by the way, is example #234,890,345 of why local elections matter. Both sponsors of this bill are Democrats, and it was the Blue Wave of 2018 that flipped the NYS Legislature blue, leading to all sorts of worthwhile laws being passed, many of them dealing with voting rights.)

It’s a long process, this creating of a worthwhile law. It’s sometimes the course, not of days or weeks, but of years—even decades.

The arc of the universe bends slowly. But it’s possible to bend it in the right direction, a little at time.

If you’re a NYS resident, more info here:  https://www.beyondplastics.org/nys-packaging-reduction.

Call Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins to urge them to bring the Act to pass the Packaging Reduction & Recycling Infrastructure Act ASAP this session. Get the phone numbers and a simple script here.>>

Email your state legislators to urge them to vote YES on the Packaging Reduction & Recycling Infrastructure Act right now. Send your emails now.

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Dear Friends,

Are you more than a little worried about the election of 2024 and wondering what to do about it? I hope you’ll continue to check out The Optimistic Activist.

Every Tuesday I post some ideas for doing something. How to get out the vote, spread the word, and support progressive candidates. Ideas for simple but effective activism. As easy, as practical, as do-able as I can make them.

Together, I think, we could really make a difference.

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