State Senator Liz Krueger
Standing Up And Speaking Out
Policy Spotlight: Styrofoam
I was extremely pleased that in his State of the City address, Mayor Bloomberg called for a number of measures to address New York City's waste stream, including a ban on extruded polystyrene, commonly known as styrofoam. For several years I have carried legislation (S. 3444) that would ban styrofoam statewide.
The purpose of this bill is to help New York clean up our waste stream and become a more environmentally sustainable state. We are creating far more damaging waste than we should, and our failure to address waste stream reduction is one reason why we find ourselves fighting over marine transfer stations and other extreme methods for dealing with all the non-recyclable trash our city produces. If we have the ability to create affordable alternatives, we should make that leap.
S. 3444 would allow the food service industry one year to find environmentally-friendly alternatives to the styrofoam products currently in use. It applies to restaurants, as well as food-service providers and vendors such as supermarkets.
Polystyrene is a liquid hydrocarbon that is commercially manufactured from petroleum, a quickly disappearing commodity. And while we're quick to throw styrofoam containers in the trash, that hardly gets rid of them: a single styrofoam cup can take up to 500 years to fully disintegrate. Each year Americans throw away 25 billion styrofoam cups, and 1,369 tons of styrofoam products every day..
Styrofoam is a notorious pollutant that is very difficult to recycle due to its light weight and low scrap value. It is generally not accepted in curbside programs, is seldom able to be reused, takes up a considerable amount of space in landfills, and takes a very long time to fully decompose. Due to the physical properties of polystyrene, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) states "that such material can have serious impacts on human health, wildlife, and the aquatic environment" because the product breaks down and can clog waterways, or be mistaken for food by wildlife.
But that's not the only threat styrofoam poses! One of styrofoam's components, styrene, is a known hazardous substance suspected to be a carcinogen and neurotoxin, which release toxins when heated. Many people do not realize that toxins can be released into their food when they microwave it in a styrofoam container.
My bill includes an "affordability clause", which recognizes that not every styrofoam product currently has an environmentally-friendly alternative, and even in some cases where there is such an alternative, the much higher cost would place undue economic hardship on various businesses. Under my bill the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) will annually adopt a list of suitable, affordable alternative products that are compostable or recyclable; these alternatives must be within 15% of the cost of non-compostable or non-recyclable products currently in use. Similar bills have already been enacted in the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, Berkeley, Portland, and about 100 other municipalities across the country. If we act now, New York could be the first state to enact this legislation and get ahead of the curve on this pressing environmental reform.
Many municipalities have enacted various versions of this law, and some of the nation's largest food-service providers have begun moving in this direction. If we want our city and state to be livable in the future, it is critical we forge ahead with practical steps to reduce the amount of non-biodegradable waste we produce. I am hopeful that Mayor Bloomberg's initiative will help advance this discussion on the state level as well.