Hooray for NYC Council Member Bill de Blasio!!

from a press release issued by Bill de Blasio, 39th District, Brooklyn, on August 22nd, 2007:

COUNCILMEMBER DE BLASIO TO PROPOSE STYROFOAM BAN

City Hall— Council Member Bill de Blasio will introduce legislation at today’s Stated Meeting that would prohibit the use of Styrofoam by City agencies and food establishments. De Blasio’s bill would ban the use of Styrofoam by all city agencies. The Department of Education (DOE), for example, goes through 850,000 Styrofoam trays a day which add up to over 4 million trays per week and over 153 million per school year. In June, Councilmember de Blasio joined Parents Against Styrofoam in Schools (P.A.S.S.) to call on the DOE to switch to either reusable plastic trays or trays that are biodegradable.

Polystyrene, more widely known as Styrofoam, is composed of Benzene, Styrene and Ethylene, which are all listed on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s hazardous substance list. Styrofoam is virtually immune to biological decomposition and also resists compacting and therefore, by volume, consumes more landfill space than other types of materials, such as paper. Due to the physical properties of polystyrene foam, the EPA states, “that such materials can also have serious impacts on human health, wildlife, the aquatic environment and the economy.”

“It is mind boggling that our City which is becoming a leader on environmental issues, is still using Styrofoam when we know it is extremely harmful to our environment and creating massive amounts of waste,” said Councilmember de Blasio, a member of the City Council’s Environmental Protection Committee. “It is unacceptable that the DOE is using Styrofoam, a substance that once it hits our landfills stays there forever.”

The legislation will also include a ban on Styrofoam “to-go” containers used by city restaurants and delis. The bill states that “no owner, operator or employee of a food establishment shall place, wrap, or otherwise package food or beverages in packaging made of polystyrene foam or offer for sale food or beverages packed in such material.”

The cities of Berkeley, California and Portland, Oregon were some of the first to prohibit polystyrene food packaging. Other jurisdictions which have instituted similar bans on polystyrene include: San Francisco, California, Freeport, Maine, Santa Cruz, California, Santa Monica, California, Sonoma County, California, Malibu, California and San Clemente, California.



Styrofoam Fact Sheet

➢ Polystyrene, or the Dow Chemical brand name, Styrofoam, is composed of Benzene, Styrene, and ethylene. Polystyrene becomes Styrofoam when it is injected with certain gases, known as blowing agents, to make it 30 times lighter than its original weight.

➢ The biggest environmental health concern associated with polystyrene is the danger
associated with Styrene, the basic building block of polystyrene. Styrene is classified as a possible human carcinogen by the EPA and by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

➢ 1986 EPA report on solid waste named the polystyrene manufacturing process as the 5th largest creator of hazardous waste.· The National Bureau of Standards Center for Fire Research identified 57 chemical byproducts released during the combustion of polystyrene foam. The process of making polystyrene pollutes the air and creates large amounts of liquid and solid waste.

➢ Studies show that toxic chemicals can leak out of these products into the food that they contain (especially when heated in a microwave). These chemicals threaten human health and reproductive systems. These products are made with petroleum, a non-sustainable and heavily polluting resource.

➢ Polystyrene foam is often dumped into the environment as litter. This material is notorious for breaking up into pieces that choke animals and clog their digestive systems.

➢ Initially a portion of polystyrene production was aided by the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), the chemicals that break down ozone in the troposphere. When this issue came to light, polystyrene manufacturers negotiated a gradual phase-out of CFCs in the production process and no CFCs have been used since the late 1980's. Though polystyrene manufacturers claim that their products are "ozone-friendly" or free of CFCs, this is only partially true. Some polystyrene is now manufactured with HCFC-22, which, though less destructive than its chemical cousins, CFC’s, is still a greenhouse gas and harmful to the ozone layer. In fact, according to a 1992 study by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, HCFCs are three to five times more destructive to the ozone layer than previously believed.

Source: "Polystyrene Foam Report." Earth Resource Foundation.