In a serious victory in opposition to plastic air pollution, metropolis council members in Los Angeles and San Diego voted on Tuesday to ban the distribution of expanded polystyrene, the foamy plastic that’s utilized in disposable espresso cups and takeout meals containers.
“Expanded polystyrene has no place in our city’s future,” LA councilmember Mitch O’Farrell told reporters on Tuesday.
Starting subsequent April, giant firms in California’s two most populous cities can be prohibited from giving out or promoting dishes, cups, and different merchandise constituted of plastic foam. The bans, that are anticipated to be signed into legislation by the mayors of every metropolis, make some exemptions for merchandise like surfboards and coolers which are encased in a “more durable material,”, and LA will give companies with fewer than 27 staff an additional 12 months to adjust to its ordinance. San Diego’s ban grants a one-year extension to companies that make lower than $500,000 yearly.
LA and San Diego will now be a part of tons of of jurisdictions across the nation which have moved to section out plastic foam, together with eight U.S. states and different main California cities like San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. And the fabric will quickly be restricted throughout California, because of a state legislation handed earlier this 12 months referred to as the Plastic Pollution Producer Responsibility Act. The laws stopped wanting outright banning polystyrene statewide however would require plastic producers to exhibit that at the least 25 p.c of it’s really recycled by 2025 — a “de facto ban,” in response to some environmental advocates, since polystyrene isn’t recyclable at just about any of the state’s materials restoration amenities, and less than 1 percent of it is recycled nationwide.
The two cities’ bans have been handed after years of lobbying from environmental organizations, which argued that the advantages of expanded polystyrene — largely its gentle weight and low price ticket — have been far outweighed by dangers to the setting and public well being. Not solely does it crumble into fragments of microplastic — tiny plastic shards which are being detected nearly in every single place on Earth, including in people’s bloodstreams — expanded polystyrene is fabricated from a constructing block referred to as styrene, labeled as “probably carcinogenic” by the World Health Organization. Research suggests expanded polystyrene containers can leach styrene into folks’s meals and drinks, and an Ipsos poll launched in April discovered that 71 p.c of California voters assist insurance policies to restrict their use.
Still, restaurant and plastics trade teams fought the laws in each cities. In San Diego, a polystyrene ban originally approved in 2019 was stalled for almost 4 years as opponents sought a complete evaluation of the coverage’s environmental impacts. The California Restaurant Association — which has about 22,000 members, in comparison with the 76,200 bars, espresso outlets, eating places, and comparable institutions that have been working within the state as of 2018 — argued that changing polystyrene with heavier merchandise would result in greater greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, a declare that proved to be technically true, albeit deceptive. Christy Leavitt, plastics marketing campaign director for the nonprofit Oceana, mentioned it ignores greenhouse fuel emissions from throughout the remainder of polystrene’s life cycle. Like any plastic, polystyrene comes from fossil fuels and causes climate pollution when it’s produced, when it’s shipped, and — as a result of just about none of it’s recycled — when it in the end winds up in a landfill, in an incinerator, or as litter in the natural environment.
On the entire, the 224-page environmental evaluation requested by trade teams confirmed that the environmental advantages of phasing out polystyrene have been greater than sufficient to justify a slight enhance in transportation emissions.
Craig Cadwallader, coverage coordinator for the nonprofit Surfrider South Bay and a member of Reusable LA, a coalition of teams that supported the polystyrene ban, mentioned the plastics trade additionally put out “a lot of misinformation” on the alleged economic toll of transferring away from polystyrene. Industry teams’ statements implied that the coverage would devastate mom-and-pop outlets and eating places, that are extra doubtless than bigger companies to nonetheless be utilizing plastic foam. (Most nationwide and regional chains have dropped polystyrene following strain from environmental teams.)
LA council members “didn’t want to be seen as being detrimental to small businesses,” Cadwallader advised Grist. But if bans have been actually as dangerous because the trade says, he added, the 158 polystyrene-related ordinances already on the books in cities and counties throughout California would have “wiped out businesses in a big way” — one thing that has not occurred. He mentioned he’s been unable to search out one instance of a enterprise that’s “gone under” from prices related to phasing out plastic foam.
In addition to banning polystyrene, LA additionally handed extra ordinances on Tuesday increasing its ban on single-use plastic luggage at grocery shops to incorporate eating places, {hardware} shops, and different retailers, and banning single-use plastics from metropolis occasions and amenities. San Diego’s ordinance additionally included language stopping eating places from giving out single-use cutlery and straws except clients request them.
The ordinances match right into a broader push to restrict single-use plastics statewide, supercharged by laws that Governor Gavin Newsom signed into legislation this summer season. Considered to be the nation’s strongest plastic discount coverage, the Plastic Pollution Producer Responsibility Act would require California to chop single-use plastic packaging and foodware at the least 25 percent under 2023 ranges over the following 10 years.