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New York City Bans Foam Containers
Prohibition Covering Takeout Cups, Boxes Goes Into Effect July 1 Under New Law
ENLARGE
A woman carries a beverage in a plastic-foam cup Thursday in New York City.
Associated Press
The city on Thursday became the latest in the U.S. to ban such containers for food and drinks, completing an initiative begun during the Bloomberg administration. Environmental advocates applauded the move, but others questioned the scope of its benefit.
The new law, which also eliminates the loose packing materials known as “peanuts,” will take effect July 1. Other cities such as San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, have passed similar bans on the once-ubiquitous cups and takeout clamshells.
Environmentalists noted that the lightweight plastic foam, known as expanded polystyrene, breaks easily, clogging waterways and posing a threat to marine life. A coffee cup used for 20 minutes, they said, can take decades to degrade—if not longer, lingering in landfills. In processing facilities, the dirty food containers are difficult to clean, while the market to buy and recycle the product, they say, remains uncertain.
“This is an important and encouraging step,” said Eric Goldstein, New York City environment director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “There’s a growing recognition that they cause disproportionate environmental and pollution problems and there are readily available substitutes. And so why not make the change?”
The decision completes a yearlong analysis by the city’s sanitation department of whether there was an effective way to recycle the materials, as required by a law passed in December 2013. Their answer? No.
“It did not make environmental sense to try and separate it out because there’s no place to sell it,” said sanitation department Commissioner Kathryn Garcia.
That assertion was vigorously contested by Dart Container Corp., which negotiated with the city in a failed effort to prevent the ban.
“I’m baffled and disappointed,” said Michael Westerfield, corporate director of recycling at Dart, which is the largest producer of foam cups in the world.
Mr. Westerfield noted that the city’s ban doesn’t cover all expanded polystyrene products, including egg cartons and packing materials used for fragile electronics like for televisions. The city estimates the ban will capture about 90% of expanded polystyrene in the city.
The ban also doesn’t address the annual 30,000 tons of rigid polystyrene—the hard plastic found in items like some yogurt containers and CD cases—generated by New Yorkers that will continue to be dumped in landfills.
Dart offered to cover the costs of infrastructure needed to sort both kinds of polystyrene products and guaranteed a market for the materials for five years, city officials and Mr. Westerfield agree.
“They’re spinning like it’s a win,” Mr. Westerfield said. “Well, it’s not.”
“I thought it was silly,” said Nickolas J. Themelis, director of the Earth Engineering Center at Columbia University, noting that expanded polystyrene products are a fraction of the city’s curbside waste stream (0.79%, according to city data).
“It’s touching a small part of the whole problem,” said Mr. Themelis, who has done studies on other topics funded by the American Chemistry Council, which lobbied against the ban.
Foam’s airiness and insulating ability means that less material can be used, he said. For instance, it doesn’t require additional protective heating sleeves like some paper coffee cups.
City officials said they were skeptical that the polystyrene would be recycled into new products and that they would be stuck once Dart’s five-year guarantee expired.
Changing the recycling habits of the city’s 8.4 million inhabitants is “a big lift and we want to make sure we have a very clear message before we go out and make that change,” said Ms. Garcia, the sanitation department commissioner.
Many restaurants have already stopped using plastic foam for takeout containers. But for some, the habit is hard to break.
At Fisherman’s Cove, a tiny Caribbean carryout restaurant in Crown Heights, oxtail, jerk chicken and roti dishes are served almost exclusively in foam containers.
“It’s going to be a difficult task. We’re going to have to restructure how we do everything and it’s going to take money,” said cook Andrew Smith.
Plastic foam costs between 50 to 70 cents per container, while replacements can cost $1.30 to $1.50, estimated the New York State Restaurant Association, which supported the legislation after exceptions were made for small businesses.
Nonprofits and small businesses that have less than $500,000 in annual revenue can receive a financial-hardship exemption if they prove the cost of the switch is too expensive.
“People care more now about sustainability,” said the restaurant association’s New York City director Chris Hickey. With the hardship exemption, “we’re taking care of the people that can’t afford it, but at the same time we’re taking care of the environment.”
Write to Sophia Hollander at sophia.hollander@wsj.com
