Foam container ban moving forwards

[Eric1600]

http://hawaiitribune-herald.com/news/loc...es-forward

7 to 2 to move to final reading.

Two council members were steadfast in their opposition.

“This bill in my opinion .. is blatantly unfair,” said Hilo Councilman Aaron Chung. “It offends my sense of fairness because it singles out a certain class of people and that’s food vendors. … It’s a sad commentary that we’re going to blame food vendors for littering. … We pick on the little guys.”

Hilo Councilwoman Sue Lee Loy agreed. She said she wants to see incentive-style legislation rather than a “stick.”

“It’s not about killing fish, it’s about making sure we have fair legislation,” Lee Loy said. “We’re legislating a choice. … When we start legislating people’s choices, it’s a dictatorship.”

Supporters were legion among testifiers, including emails and petitions signed by hundreds, as well as video testimony from Jean-Michel Cousteau.

Douglas McCauley, assistant professor of marine science at the University of California at Santa Barbara and director of the Benioff Ocean Institute, said he’s done a great deal of study around the Hawaiian Islands.

Danger to sea life is two-fold with polystyrene and other plastics, he said. First is the mechanical problem when the material chokes sea life or causes internal obstruction. The other is chemical contamination, he said.

I sure wish I didn't live in this dictatorship and I could still get leaded gasoline and paint. Where's my choice gone?! So unfair adding another $0.12 to a plate lunch.

One example just from amazon which is not some bulk discount place:

200 for $32 ($0.16 ea) foam https://www.amazon.com/95HT3R-Container-...B004NG8BEY

200 for $54 ($0.275 ea) https://www.amazon.com/Earths-Natural-Al..._sbs_201_1

[alaskyn66]

I understand what they are wanting to do and why. But with the south pacific and North pacific garbage patch, it seems silly to ban plastics,styrofoam etc.all the crap washing up on the southern beaches is floatsum from any number of Pacific rim countries.

As an after thought, they should ban visitors from countries that still use plastic bags and styrofoam.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Thanks Eric1600.
As Aaron Chung noted, most legislation affects a "certain class of people." Or business entity might perhaps be more appropriate. That's not unique to this situation.

What if we liked having lead in our toothpaste tubes because they rolled up better from the bottom, squeezing out ever last blob of paste + lead from the tube?
What if dentists prefered putting mercury in fillings because they had all of the equipment to mix that type of filling?

I've worked up such a thirst thinking about the inherent unfairness to our food vendors, I wish I could drink a cold can of Tab, chock full of Saccharin, Cyclamate, Aspartame or whatever they used to put in it to make such a delicious beverage.

If they made food containers with asbestos fibers mixed in for better heat retention, someone would be against banning that too.

The Donner Party really wasn't that great of a party, was it?

[kalakoa]

She said she wants to see incentive-style legislation rather than a "stick."

Again: put a deposit on foam containers, and keep raising it until they disappear from the waste stream.

Passing the higher costs of worse packaging along to the consumer ... what could go wrong?

[DTisme]

Food vendors don't need styrofoam. There are PLENTY of alternatives (compressed/molded paper pulp, for instance). When we moved here 8 years ago, we were shocked to see styrofoam still in use - hadn't seen it in years and years in SF Bay Area. (I know, don't mention where you used to live - no one cares how they did it there). Even McDonald's hasn't used styrofoam for years, altho apparently they still use styrofoam cups in Chicago area. Is polystyrene THAT cheaper than molded paper pulp?

[ElysianWort]

I wish it would become mandatory that all those disposable utensils and containers be compostable. Cardboard and natural biodegradable corn-plastic.

[Kenney]

Nothing ruins my appetite like having a "to go" order heated in a microwave in a styrofoam container and having my food stuck to white melted chemicals .
I hope to never again be served anything in styrofoam. I'm pretty sure the fish don't like it either.
.
The plastic bag ban didn't kill us. Neither will a styrofoam ban.
Bring on the alternatives! Island Natch has great recycled utensils and paper containers.
It's not too late to do something nice for Mother Nature.

[terracore]

"Is polystyrene THAT cheaper than molded paper pulp?"

"If you’re concerned with making the eco-friendly choice between the two, Styrofoam wins on many fronts. Unless you’re using a paper cup that is biodegradable (most are not), there are some aspects to consider. A standard paper cup takes more than 20 years to decompose in a landfill environment. This is mostly due to the wax lining on the inside of the cup. The trendy paper cup also takes more energy, raw material and money to make. For example, in comparison to Styrofoam, a paper cup requires 12 times the amount of water, 36 times the amount of electricity and costs double the amount of money to produce."

https://recyclenation.com/2010/03/styrofoam-paper-cups/

I'm not pro-plastic, but these issues are rarely as black and white as they seem:

"This issue is an important one. Householders continue to see plastic as wicked and paper-based goods as benign. But when considered over the entire life of the packaging, paper and cardboard embody far more greenhouse gases than their plastic equivalents. Paper products take substantial amounts of energy to make. Crushing a tree down into small fibres, mixing the wood pulp into a slurry and then passing the wet mass through huge rollers cannot be done without use of enormous quantities of power. Making paper and cardboard is almost certainly the third largest industrial use of energy on the planet. By contrast, plastic is light, durable and its manufacture is generally not particularly energy intensive – at least by comparison to paper. A second concern is that many paper and cardboard products, probably including Riverford boxes, end up in local authority landfill, where they rot down anaerobically, creating the greenhouse gas methane in the process."

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/...-cardboard

While it might make consumers "feel good" about using paper versus plastic, the net result on the environment is worse to forgo the plastic. If use of plastic was widely banned, the Earth's forests couldn't keep up with the demand and humans would be mowing down more amazon rain forest.

The only solution is to quit using disposable things altogether. In the Olde Daze, the companies that made animal feed put their products into sacks made out of cloth with designs on them. The families who bought the feed would make dresses, quilts, and other things out of the feed bags. The feed bag companies would change the design on the feed bags periodically to mix the fashion up.

ETA: bold

[kalakoa]

The only solution is to quit using disposable things altogether.

If you think compostable to-go containers are expensive, wait until you see how much it costs to wash dishes.

[terracore]

KFC serves their sides in reusable containers. Like cheap Tupperware. I believe they are also microwavable and dishwasher safe. There are ways to push the dish washing onto the consumer. On the other hand, it's probably the most expensive fast food place to eat at.

Eventually somebody will propose banning their reusable plastic and they will replace it with something that is worse for the environment and can only be used once.

I remember a product in the late 70's or 80's that allowed anybody to turn a glass pop bottle (remember they were 16 ounces back then) into a drinking glass. Basically it cut off the neck and polished the cut. Don't know why the product disappeared, probably cut faces or something, but it was an interesting offering. Today most "recycled glass" is ground up and put into landfills. I understand there is a point to adding the fake glass soil to the landfill but I'm not sure if the energy consumed has a net worth to the environment over just dumping the glass bottles whole into the landfill. Makes more sense to re-use the bottles.

ETA: second and third paragraphs