If you don’t care about the environment or litter or microscopic pieces of plastic collecting inside your brain, maybe you care about your taxes.

As with many issues, the solution to the issue of reducing plastic and other forms of product packaging might just come down to how much it affects people’s pocketbooks.

Once again this legislative session, state lawmakers will consider the New York Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act (A1749/S1464), a bill designed, as one might surmise, to reduce the amount of plastic and other packaging that gets into the environment by putting the onus on companies that use and produce it.

Among other goals, the legislation requires a 30% reduction in plastics over 12 years.

The latest version of the bill passed the Senate last year, but it hasn’t gotten through the state Assembly.

Opponents fear the act will raise the cost of packaging to manufacturers and distributors, who will then pass that extra cost on to New Yorkers. In a time when........

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