It's the Brian Laird Show on WNC. I'm Bridget Bergen, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist Newsroom.

Filling in for Brian today.

And now we turn to our Climate Segment of the Week, which we do every Tuesday on this show. Two climate-related

bills still hang in the balance in Albany with the legislative session

winding down this week. We're talking about the New York Heat Act and the Packaging

Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act. The New York Heat Act would cap

utility bills for some New Yorkers based on income while also providing

incentives for utility companies

to switch to renewable fuels. The other bill aims to reduce plastic packaging by

50% over the course of 12 years. After those 12 years, all plastics and other recyclables must be made at least 70% recyclable.

Some of the costs of that would be offset by the companies that make plastic packaging themselves.

Joining us now to break down those bills and their fate head of the end of Albany session,

there are two activists, Courtney Williams, founder of Westchester Alliance for Sustainable

Solutions, an organization fighting the Peakskill Incinerator, and John Raskin, President of Spring Street Climate Fund.

Courtney and John, welcome to WNYC.

Thanks for having me.

Good to be here.

Great.

And Courtney, just by way of background, can you remind us what the packaging reduction and recycling infrastructure act is and what it aims to do?

Sure, it is a mouthful, but the goal of this bill is to reduce plastic pollution by 50% in 12 years.

And as you mentioned in the intro, after that, 70% must be recyclable because most of what we have

now is not and really importantly for a community like mine living near a trash

...