Disposable foamed polystyrene packaging first became an issue in the late 1980s, when public focus had turned to the ozone layer and the polystyrene industry came under scrutiny for its use of large amounts of CFCs in polystyrene production.

The City of Berkeley and Suffolk County, NY, were some of the first municipalities to ban foamed polystyrene in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Suffolk County, in particular, was the object of a law suit by the plastics industry in an attempt to stymie the growing number of communities considering polystyrene ordinances. As a result of the unfavorable attention, the plastics industry generated much hype about the recyclability of polystyrene to use as further fodder against such ordinances.

Ten years later, most industry-sponsored polystyrene recycling facilities no longer exist--a testament to the difficulty of polystyrene recycling--and attention is, once again, focusing on foamed polystyrene disposable food packaging.

The focus is not now CFCs (though their replacement, pentane, is highly volatile), but rather the inefficiency of foamed polystyrene disposable food products from an energy, emissions and waste management perspective.

By the very nature of disposable foamed polystyrene food products--with a use value of perhaps a few minutes if not less—disposable polystyrene food packaging is once again being targeted by local municipalities as an important step in their attempt to reduce the sources of waste and litter.

The most effective polystyrene ordinances--like that of the City of Santa Monica's--force local business owners to only use disposable food products that are recyclable by the municipality’s curbside recycling program. Not only do such ordinances encourage local businesses to use disposable food products made from post-consumer content, they also ensure that a major source of landfill material and litter is instead diverted to recycling, saving petroleum resources, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and protecting our ecosystem and marine environment.

The cost of such a switch for local business owners is nominal, but the environmental pay-off is marked.

Additional Resources:

• Click here to see a list of municipalities that have polystyrene ordinances.
• See a list of biodegradable and compostable alternatives to polystyrene packaging from California's Waste Management Board and stopwaste.org.
• Learn more about compostable plastics.