The Briefing Room
General Category => National/Breaking News => Topic started by: flowers on November 22, 2013, 08:15:04 pm
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http://nypost.com/2013/11/21/mayor-bloomberg-wants-to-ban-styrofoam/
Before he leaves office next month, Mayor Bloomberg is ordering one more takeout — Styrofoam.
At the request of the mayor, the City Council’s Sanitation Committee is holding a hearing Monday on a bill to prohibit the use and sale of plastic foam cups and plates that have long been ubiquitous in delis, bodegas and even school cafeterias.
Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway will testify on behalf of the administration, which first proposed the ban in the summer and is now rushing to get it enacted into law.
Sanitation officials say plastic foam food containers add 23,000 tons of trash a year to landfills, The city’s total total waste stream is more than three million tons.
The officials say the ban is warranted because foam containers are non-biodegradable, can’t be recycled and spoil the environment.
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Newport Beach in conservative Orange County CA has banned Polystyrene (Styrofoam). Adjacent Huntington Beach is studying a similar ban.
Huntington Beach recently instituted a charge of 10 cents for stores to give plastic bags. Customers are expected to bring their own bags, presumably environmentally friendly bags.
These two cities account for nearly half the coastline of densely populated Orange County. The ocean is highly valued as a source of natural beauty, tourism, the climate, etc. Therefore keep it clean.
Keeping non-biodegradable materials out of the daily stream of trash, is popular with liberals and conservatives in California.
Conservation and conservative have the same root word: conserve
"Don't kill (or catch) more than you can eat," "leave the campground cleaner than you found it" are the types of phrases I learned from my Western, conservative parents.
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Banning Styrofoam is something I agree with. Horrible crap it is. Can't be reused, breaks down into a scum of little beads and is poisonous as hell if you burn it.
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It is not true that styrofoam cannot be recycled. I put it out in the same blue bags used for plastic and glass and the recycling truck picks it up.
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It is not true that styrofoam cannot be recycled. I put it out in the same blue bags used for plastic and glass and the recycling truck picks it up.
You are correct. Even 'green' activist websites say it is recyclable. http://www.keenforgreen.com/b/styrofoam-recyclable There are several myths about styrofoam, one is you can't recycle it. The other is it doesn't break down. http://www.foamfacts.com/myths-vs-facts/
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It is not true that styrofoam cannot be recycled. I put it out in the same blue bags used for plastic and glass and the recycling truck picks it up.
But you do remember just a few years ago, when McDonalds meals were in Styrofoam containers, which went straight into the trash. Likewise cups for drinks, etc.
That's the genesis for bans.