STYROFOAM GOING BYE-BYE:
‘Unfriendly’ substance to be banned in takeout containers starting Jan. 1
New York City will say so long to Styrofoam on Jan. 1.
The city’s on-again-off-again relationship with expanded plastic foam containers for takeout is set to end with a ban of the product starting in 2019. The move comes after years of legal challenges delayed a 2013 law banning the product from taking effect. and
“New York City’s ban on Styrofoam is long overdue, and New Yorkers are ready to start using recyclable alternatives,” Mayor de Blasio said.
“There’s no reason to continue allowing this environmentally unfriendly substance to flood our streets, landfills, and waterways.”
The path toward the move was cleared last week when a judge sided with the city over the Restaurant Action Alliance of New York City, which had sued in an effort to stop the ban.
The group is reviewing options for a possible appeal.
But if the ban becomes reality, it’ll mean restaurants will not be able to use those familiar foam coffee cups or clam-shell-shaped containers for takeout, unless they earn less than $500,000 in revenue a year and can prove switching to a new material would be a financial hardship.
Omar Najar, 33, a manager at Seaport Deli on Fulton St., said the business uses foam containers to package burgers, fries and all its hot food.
If the law takes effect, he’ll have to switch to plastic, he said — and pass on the cost.
“The plastic is three times more expensive than the Styrofoam. We would have to raise our prices,” Najar said.
“It would cost more for everybody, and a lot of customers don’t like plastic.”
The food tastes different in plastic, he argued, and during a delivery, “food goes soggy faster.”
But Raul Fernandez, 31, who runs NY Bagel Cafe and Deli in the South Bronx, said he’d already largely phased out the foam.
“It’s a little more difficult, but I understand because it’s better for the environment and we have to do our part,” Fernandez said.
“Obviously it’s more cost-efficient to use Styrofoam, but we understand what it takes to have a clean environment. There is climate change. It’s real.”
The law prohibits restaurants from using the product for takeout, and will also mean stores can’t stock single-use products like foam plates, cups, and coolers for consumers to buy.
Nor will stores be able to sell — nor businesses who ship from the city be able to use — foam packing products. But if somebody out of state sends it to you, possessing the foam is not a crime.
New Yorkers will also continue to see Styrofoam in stores in the form of egg cartons and beneath shrinkwrapped ground beef, as those products are often packaged out-of-state.
The city is pushing forward after a longrunning legal debate over whether Styrofoam can be recycled — a question the 2013 law required the Sanitation Department to study before implementing a ban.
The department first determined it couldn’t be recycled, but the restaurant alliance challenged that decision as “arbitrary and capricious,” and a judge tossed it out — stalling the ban.
Sanitation then took on a more substantial study into the feasibility of recycling the product — including visiting plants that seek to do so — and again determined it could not be easily recycled in New York.
The industry challenged the ruling again, but last week, a judge determined the city’s decision was wellresearched enough to stand, paving the way for the ban to begin.
“As we had previously determined, plain and simple, expanded polystyrene cannot be recycled, and we are pleased that the court decision will allow us to remove this problematic material from our waste stream,” city Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia said in a statement.
Still, that back-and-forth battle was vexing to some businesses.
“Not too long ago they wanted us to use only plastic containers so we went out and spent all that money and it’s more expensive than Styrofoam,” Bernie Greenberg, 69, who manages Camagüey Restaurant in Mott Haven, the Bronx, said.
“Then, no, you don’t have to, they changed it again.”
He, too, feared he’d have to raise prices at his “little hole in the wall place.”
“Everyone is poor around People won’t be happy,” he said.
“They’ll think we’re raising our prices because we’re greedy.”
But nonprofits and small businesses with less than $500,000 in annual revenue can apply for hardship exemptions through the city Small Business Services Department.
They would have to prove buying alternative containers would create an undue financial hardship, city officials said.