A bill that would reduce the use of restaurant takeout polystyrene food containers to protect the environment, could prohibit Massachusetts restaurants from dispensing the containers by 2023.
The proposed law could do more harm than good for restaurant owners, said Steve Clark, the director of government affairs at the Massachusetts Restaurant Association. In addition to causing financial problems for operators, said Clark, “banning single-use plastic packaging could cause significant market disruptions.”
Restaurants use disposable containers to safely transport and maintain the temperature of food, but environmentalists like Environment Massachusetts have long criticized polystyrene as “among the worst forms of plastic pollution.”
“It's a highly visible form of litter used in large quantities,” said Clint Richmond, a member of Brookline Solid Waste Committee and executive committee member of Massachusetts Sierra Club.
In 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency reported plastic containers and packaging are “a rapidly growing segment of municipal solid waste (MSW),” consisting of 14.5 million tons.
Polystyrene is an affordable material in food packaging commonly used by restaurants that comes in two forms: expanded and rigid, “but many legislative proposals do not differentiate,” said Clark.
Often incorrectly referred to as “Styrofoam,” expanded polystyrene (EPS) refers to single-use clamshell takeout containers and foam tableware while rigid polystyrene refers to clear takeout containers, straws, plastic utensils, cup lids for hot beverages and fountain drink cups.
The bill currently defines polystyrene as “a synthetic resin which is a polymer of styrene, used chiefly as lightweight rigid foams and solid containers,” but does not identify which type the proposed law will target.
This lack of specificity “can target the wrong type of polystyrene,” said Clark, which could be more detrimental for consumers.
While more than 50 cities and towns in MA have similar bans on polystyrene, Representative Marjorie Decker said a statewide reduction of disposable food packaging remains crucial.
One of the co-sponsors of the House bill in 2020, Decker said pollution is much greater now than years before. “We are at the precipice of a public health crisis when it comes to our love affair with single-use products to be in our ecosystem,” she said during a forum in July.
More than 50% of adults in the U.S. used single-use food containers as of June this year, according to data collected by the Foodservice Packaging Institute.
Clark said this is because “restaurants continue to use plastic packaging for a number of reasons, including plastic’s functionality, performance, and cost.”
While alternative food packaging produces less pollution than polystyrene containers, Clark said eco-friendly products often lack the same durability and insulation as its counterparts.
“For example,” said Clark, “some alternative packaging materials are not as durable or insulated as polystyrene foam. If customers are tempted to double-cup drinks in an attempt to reduce leakage, this increases the amount of material used and waste generated.”
Despite this kind of usage, polystyrene containers remain harmful to the environment. The environmental advocacy group MASSPIRG wrote on its website that polystyrene “takes hundreds of years to fully degrade — which means that every piece of foam ever made is still out there and will continue to pollute our planet for hundreds of years to come.”
Polystyrene waste accumulates quickly because many states prohibit the recycling of the material. According to the EPA, landfills received 27 million tons of plastic in 2018.
“Fragments of plastic have been found in hundreds of species, which can block their digestive tracts and lead to starvation and, additionally, plastic waste washing up on our beaches in riverbanks is an eyesore,” Ben Hellerstein, state director for Environment Massachusetts, said during a hearing in June.
Municipal bans exist across the state, but MA has yet to implement a statewide ban on polystyrene. Something which Richmond said should be an easy fix.
“We’re not talking about spaceships here,” said Richmond, “we’re just talking about coffee cups, so we don't need this kind of over engineered, overly toxic material to solve. It’s a pretty simple problem.”
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