World Centric, a 15-year-old Rohnert Park, Calif.-based sustainability advocacy and compostable food packaging Benefit corporation, is calling for the end of polystyrene use in food packaging. Mark Marrinozi, vice president of marketing at World Centric, joins Earth911’s Mitch Ratcliffe to discuss the use of polystyrene, how World Centric’s line of compostable alternatives behave when composted, and the evolution of a unique company that gives 25 percent of its profits to startup sustainability efforts around the world. Learn to identify polystyrene when shopping and dining out, find out what to tell local businesses that still use polystyrene, and help make the change happen.
From the clamshell foam dinner tray to the many hard plastic #6 food containers used in restaurants and grocery stores, polystyrene carries health and environmental risks. Since food waste in the containers prevents easy recycling and the material is mostly air and not economically viable to recycle, it is time to retire polystyrene in our food stream. Get the lowdown on how styrene mimics estrogen in the body and leaches into food and groundwater. More than 90 percent of the material goes straight into landfills.
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