NYC Council to Vote on Plastic Foam Ban

NYC Council to Vote on Plastic Foam Ban
Protesters gather on City Hall steps to call on a ban on plastic foam food services containers, commonly known as Styrofoam, in New York in November 2013. (Matt Gnaizda)
Sarah Matheson
12/19/2013
Updated:
7/18/2015

NEW YORK—Council will vote today on a bill that would see expanded polystyrene (EPS), commonly known under the brand name Styrofoam, either banned or added to the city’s curbside recycling program.

Three members of the Council’s sanitation and solid waste committee voted unanimously on Dec. 19, 2013, to take the bill to the full Council meeting later in the day.

Council Member Michael Nelson said, “With all due respect to the business that will be impacted… it has been said we drink the coffee for five minutes, it will be there for 500 years… we should have done this a long time ago.”

The current version of the bill would give the city’s sanitation commissioner until Jan. 1, 2015, to determine whether plastic foam is recyclable.

If the commissioner deems plastic foam not recyclable, it will be banned in all city food service establishments on July 1, 2015.

Sarah Matheson covers the business of luxury for Epoch Times. Sarah has worked for media organizations in New Zealand, Australia, and the United States. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology, and graduated with merit from the Aoraki Polytechnic School of Journalism in 2005. Sarah is almost fluent in Mandarin Chinese. Originally from New Zealand, she now lives next to the Highline in Manhattan's most up-and-coming neighborhood, West Chelsea.
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