Assemblyman Steve Englebright, D-Setauket, is on the right track when he proposes an 85% goal for the reduction, recycling or composting of solid waste generated in New York by 2032.

Getting there, however, will require more than pretty words on paper.

Too many items people think they’re recycling in 2022 actually end up in landfills. Some of the problem is educating people what should and shouldn’t be recycled, but that problem has been around for decades. The real issue is that while recycling markets are picking up slightly, according to trade publications, they are still far less accepting and far less lucrative for garbage collectors like the Jamestown Board of Public Utilities than they were in the past.

In 2020, the Jamestown Board of Public Utilities eliminated glass from its curbside recycling program because the market for glass recycling was so poor the utility company was losing money on glass recycling and because customers wanted the utility to collect other recyclables more often. For a short time in 2020, some of the plastic collected by Chautauqua County had to be placed in the landfill because they couldn’t find a company to take it.

Englebright’s bill deserves to be passed by the state Senate. Being more environmentally friendly is the right policy, especially when it comes to our waste. As Assemblyman Andrew Goodell said in his comments on A.4117 recently, passing the bill is the easy part. Are we all up for the hard work to meet Englebright’s goal? And is the state ready to do its part to help?