Stroyfoam Bans: Here to Stay?
While most cities rely on consumers to recycle Styrofoam, there are roughly 100 cities across the U.S. that have adopted a ban or strict regulations on Styrofoam or polystyrene food packaging. Most cities with the ban require restaurants, food service providers, vendors, supermarkets as well as city government buildings to use biodegradable food containers as an alternative.
A main factor in banning the #6 plastic for use in to go food containers is that it has become a huge problem in polluting the world’s waterways. It is also a major component in unsightly litter that California claims to be responsible for 15 percent of the litter collected from storm drains.
Monetary penalties are usually imposed upon businesses who do not comply with the ordinance. While most cities with these bans in place are found along the west coast, its appeal to the greening of the consumer conscience is catching on throughout the country. There is even legislature being debated on the state level in New York called the Food Service Waste Reduction Act whose goal is to find suitable, affordable, environmentally friendly alternatives that are compostable or recyclable and within 15 percent of the cost of non-compostable or non-recyclable products currently in use.
The bans have the potential to reduce millions of pounds of polystyrene waste. California and Hawaii are also considering similar bills to ban the use of expanded polystyrene in food packaging.
While Los Angeles is currently studying a foamed polystyrene ban and hoping to enact it by 2013, other cities have been doing this for some time. What cities are giving the bans a go?
Berkeley, CA
The City of Berkeley was one of the first communities to adopt a food packaging ordinance.
Type: Expanded Polystyrene Ban; Requirement that 50 percent, by volume, of takeout food packaging be recyclable or compostable.
Date: Enacted 1988.
Oakland, CA
Type: Expanded Polystyrene Ban; Requirement that all takeout food packaging be compostable; Contains affordability clause.
Date: Effective June, 2006.
San Francisco, CA
Type: Expanded Polystyrene Ban; Requirement that all takeout food packaging be recyclable/compostable; Contains affordability clause.
Date: Effective June, 2007.
Freeport, Maine
The Town of Freeport was one of the first U.S. municipalities to ban polystyrene packaging.
Type: The Town prohibits the sale or use of foamed polystyrene food packaging.
Portland, Oregon
Type: The City of Portland prohibits food vendors from using polystyrene as prepared food packaging.
Suffolk County, New York
Suffolk County enacted one of the nation’s first polystyrene ordinances, and was targeted by the plastics industry with a lawsuit attempting to repeal the ordinance.
Type: Restaurants in Suffolk County are prohibited from using foamed polystyrene or PVC food packaging or utensils.
Seattle, WA
Seattle proposed a ban on the use of expanded polystyrene containers and cups in all restaurants.
Type: The ban applies to all food service businesses and includes some of the EPS packaging used in grocery stores such as meat and vegetable display trays
Date: The ban begins Jan. 1, 2009.
Information from the California Integrated Waste Management Board
 |
Chad Burnham is a free lance writer contributing to Earth911.com. He is also a Biologist and Environmental Advocate for a North Carolina based biotech company. |
As of June 17th 2011 we have upgraded our comment system to use Facebook comments. The below comments are closed and are listed for historical purposes.
Laura Rodriguez
posted on October 7th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Chad,
I would be interested to find out how these bans affected total landfill numbers. I’ve heard that the ban in SF was not as successful as they had hoped, because other food packaging refuse went up as a result of the ban. Is it being reconsidered?.. and if polystyrene is recycled, as is now happening in many companies, cities and even in food service applications, is it still environmentally unfriendly? I read on earth 911 that otherwise compostable products, (ie. cardboard/paper) are often deemed nonrecycleable because they absorb oils etc from food, so they end up in landfill situations (where biodegradation is actually actively prohibited due to methane gas and groundwater pollution it causes, as well as the fact that we don’t ever re-use “dump soil” for growing food.) I have also heard it stated that in order for biodegradation in mass quantities to be eco-friendly, there must be some sort of condenser used. Is the goal not to keep the resources we use in the consumer stream for as long as possible, and keep as much as possible out of landfill? If the cardboard cannot remain clean, it is actually non-helpful. At the elementary school where I work, the students can keep their #6 trays quite clean, as they are nonporous, and we recycle 90% of them. They are re-used in the form of picture frames, and can also be made into building materials, cd cases, computer cases, more foodservice trays, etc.
Maybe the key is to identify both what product works for the consumer, and be sure that it can be re-used.
We couldn’t do it with cardboard, as the recycling company had to back out on the contract to recycle our district’s “unclean” trays.
It is just hard to clean cardboard in the food service application!
I am currently working on creating a local loop for our trays, and possibly the trays of about 50 other schools.
I remember in the sixties/seventies when we discovered that aluminum, tin and glass were big problems because of litter. You’re probably too young to remember the Native American crying commercial, or the owl who told us “Give a hoot! Don’t pollute!” (I think his name was Woodsy the Owl), but that was a behavioral problem, and now that we know more, the litter is not an issue. Plus, there are now recycling centers everywhere for glass and aluminum. Polystyrene intake centers for recycling are popping up everywhere, though most people don’t yet know it’s an option.
Possibly the waterways can be cleaned up, and the landfill increase slowed with a public education campaign about polystyrene recycling opportunities and secondary uses.
Maybe that’s two birds with one stone? (landfill issues, and re-use/loop mindset) What do you think?
Laura Rodriguez