Starting this summer, New Yorkers will no longer be able to point to a food container and annoyingly note that “Styrofoam is a trademarked term for insulation, it’s actually extruded polystyrene.” The initiative to ban what we’re going to go ahead and call styrofoam containers at restaurants and other food businesses was started by former mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2013, and is being carried out by Mayor Bill de Blasio. His office says it’ll finally go into effect this summer.
The July 1 start date will make New York City the largest city in the country to ban the containers, which have invoked the ire of environmentalists for a long time now.
“These products cause real environmental harm and have no place in New York City,” said de Blasio in a statement announcing the ban, according to the Associated Press. “We have better options, better alternatives, and if more cities across the country follow our lead and institute similar bans, those alternatives will soon become more plentiful and will cost less.”
This means no halal carts, taco trucks or restaurants of any kind can use plastic foam cups or takeout containers, and plastic packing peanuts will disappear from store shelves in the city as well.
“While much of the waste we produce can be recycled or reused, polystyrene foam is not one of those materials,” said Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia. “Removing polystyrene from our waste stream is not only good for a greener, more sustainable New York, but also for the communities who are home to landfills receiving the city’s trash.”
NYC will begin banning restaurant plastic foam in July [Associated Press]
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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