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Well-paid lobbyists in Albany are working hard to make sure we keep ingesting styrofoam, formaldehyde, toluene and PFAS via our air land and water, and New York's Assembly might just let them succeed.

I urge readers to contact their state Assembly members and tell them to support A1749, the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act, which would require large companies to reduce the amount and kind of packaging they use. Over a generously long time period, the bill would require big companies to stop using toxic chemicals to package their goods and to use less packaging altogether. It would also introduce a modest packaging fee in order to help localities pay for disposing of packaging properly.

In other words: “Help us pay for the toxic mess you make and, by the way, make less mess." This is a reasonable request, the standard operating procedure in most homes and kindergartens. But lobbyists are claiming that these requirements would necessitate unaffordable price increases.

Really? Fewer taxpayer dollars would be spent in collecting packaging waste and getting rid of it. Threats to our health would decrease when there were fewer emissions from burning packaging that contains who knows what.

For those benefits, I would happily pay a nickel more for a box of Kleenex.

Published June 16, 2025

Given the rollbacks on harmful PFAS chemicals that were announced from Washington, D.C. ("EPA rolling back PFAS standards," May 16), Albany has a critical opportunity to take action to get rid of these toxic chemicals at the source and ban them from everyday consumer products like non-stick cookware, cleaning products, dental floss, stain resistant- and waterproof textiles, and children’s products.

The state Senate passed a bill (S187A) that would do just that, and the Assembly must do the same by June 17 by passing A7738.

These “forever chemicals” don’t break down in the environment or in our bodies and are linked to cancer, thyroid and hormone disruption, infertility, and other dangers. Banning PFAS in products New Yorkers use every day - especially when there are available, safer alternatives - is just plain common sense.

Speaker Carl E. Heastie and my assemblymember, Gabriella A. Romero, should vote for this bill to get these toxic chemicals out of our homes and to stop the unnecessary uses of PFAS chemicals that are polluting New York’s drinking water.

The writer is the Conservation Program Manager for the Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter.

Published June 16, 2025

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed maintaining for PFOA and PFOS a drinking water standard of 4 parts per trillion. But what does that number actually mean in understandable terms?

The article "EPA rolling back PFAS standards," May 16 notes that 4 parts per trillion is the equivalent of one drop in five Olympic-sized swimming pools. Clearly, 4 parts per trillion is a very small quantity.

What does this very small amount mean in the consumption of drinking water? While not likely, a person drinking a gallon of water per day for 100 years would consume about 36,500 gallons of water. If that water contained 4 parts per trillion of PFOA or PFOS, it would mean consuming the equivalent of between .007 to .012 of the substance over 100 years.

This very small amount of “forever” chemicals calls into question how they can be “linked” to or cause so many diseases. While I am concerned about public health, the costs to people paying for drinking water need to be justified. It would be very informative to the public if the........

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