Eating places and food supply companies might be barred from offering plastic knives, forks and condiment packets, except clients particularly request them, if a bill handed by the New York Metropolis Council Thursday goes into impact.
The bill goals to curb single-use plastic waste that may’t be recycled. Roughly 1.1 million kilos of single-use plastic foodware from New York Metropolis wind up in landfills and incinerators yearly.
If signed by the mayor, the bill would go into impact in six months. Mayor Eric Adams’ workplace didn’t instantly return a request for remark.
“‘Skip the Stuff’ will put money back into the pockets of our small businesses while also minimizing our City’s carbon footprint and make New York a more sustainable city,” stated Council Member Marjorie Velázquez, the bill’s sponsor. “If we continue the use of single-use plastics and other additions, we will feel the negative repercussions through our environment and our local businesses.”
After an preliminary grace interval via July of subsequent yr, companies might begin to see fines of up to $250 in the event that they’re discovered to repeatedly present clients with plastic knives and forks with out being particularly requested to achieve this. Supply apps would have to add an possibility for purchasers to request silverware and condiments however the default could be eating places not offering them.
New York officers have taken different steps in the direction of curbing plastic waste lately, banning single use styrofoam in 2019, implementing a plastic bag ban in 2020, and proscribing plastic straws in 2021.
Final fiscal yr, about 20% of the metropolis’s trash was diverted from landfills via recycling and composting, far off the metropolis’s aim of sending zero waste to landfills by 2030.
Environmentalists welcomed the bill’s passage.
“When signed into law by Mayor Adams, this legislation will mean no more unwanted plastic forks, stacks of napkins, and ketchup packets piling up in kitchen drawers of New Yorkers across the city,” stated Raine Manley, with the Reusable NYC coalition.
Landfills emit the potent greenhouse gasoline methane, and are the third-largest supply of artifical methane emissions, in accordance to the U.S. Environmental Safety Company.