The future of plastic-foam food containers in takeout-loving New York City is up for debate.
The City Council’s sanitation committee has a hearing set for Monday on proposals to ban the containers or explore recycling them.
Street vendors and eateries prize lightweight, heat-keeping plastic foam cups, plates and to-go cartons. But they take a long time to break down in landfills.
Some West Coast cities have banned such containers.
This winter, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg suggested doing the same in the nation’s biggest city. New Yorkers throw out about 23,000 tons of foam per year.
Restaurateurs say alternatives to plastic foam are more expensive and less effective at insulating food.
Business groups and backers of the foam ban disagree on the feasibility of recycling the material.
(AP)
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3 Responses
In many U.S. cities and most of Europe, these styrofoam containers were banned years ago without much difficulty. The substitutes cost a few pennies more but there are much longer-term savings in terms of physical disposal costs at landfill sites and incinerators. Its a sensible move without the “nanny-state” issues involved in large drinks or sugary snacks.
More govt interference by doomberg before we get his sorry posterior out of our lives. I wish all you socialist commies got out of my country.
People like 1 like the EU so much? So get out of here and stay there!
And I guess Mark would also “deport” the residents of over 20 cities in the United States who have adopted such laws??