Dismayed by the litter from foam cups and food containers, more U.S. cities are seeking to ban or restrict their usage. But are the alternatives greener?
Your coffee shop's cup of Joe may be getting a makeover as more U.S. cities try to curb litter with bans or limits on foam cups and takeout food containers.
The campaign against polystyrene packaging, often known by the brand Styrofoam, is strongest in California where 70 jurisdictions have approved restrictions — 19 this year alone, according to Clean Water Action, an environmental group advocating them. The bans often apply to restaurants and others using disposable cups or containers.
"This is catching on like a tidal wave," says Miriam Gordon, the group's California director. At the urging of middle school students, Los Angeles County, which runs the nation's second-largest public school system, extended its 2010 ban on foam food containers in county-owned buildings to its schools, which switched to compostable paper lunch trays in August.
It's not just in California. The dozen or so other U.S. cities with such bans, including Seattle and New York's Glen Cove, expanded this year to include Massachusetts' Brookline and Amherst. Next month, Boston City Council member Stephen Murphy says the city will hold a hearing for a "thorough vetting" of his proposed ban on foam food containers.
"It's a bad actor in the environment," Gordon says of polystyrene, which is not biodegradable and is rarely recycled. She says it's difficult to clean up, because it breaks into little pieces and is so lightweight that it "gets blown around by the wind" like plastic bags.
Studies show fish are ingesting polystyrene, and the U.S. government's National Toxicology Program said last year that styrene, the key ingredient, is "reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen."
Not all anti-foam efforts are succeeding. This year, a proposed statewide ban died in the California Legislature, having faced opposition from the chemical industry, and the GOP-led U.S. House of Representatives rejected a Democratic proposal that would have prevented funding for foam food packaging.
"Once people see that the alternatives often have higher (environmental) impacts, they look at the issue differently," says Keith Christman of the American Chemistry Council. He says paper containers, which are heavier, require more resources to make and many recyclers don't accept them because of their plastic coating.
"There's no perfect cup today. It's all about trade-offs," says Scott Murphy of Dunkin' Donuts. He says paper cups are made from a renewable resource but cannot insulate hot beverages without the coating and often cost more. He adds that foam cups are made from petroleum but since they're 94% air, take up little room in landfills when compressed.
Murphy says Dunkin' Donuts will experiment with a non-foam cup in the second quarter of 2013. McDonald's, which phased out its foam burger box in 1990, began testing a double-thick paper cup in 2,000 restaurants this year. Jamba Juice announced in August that it will complete its switch from foam cups next year.
"We're seeing a trend toward coated paper packaging," says Jim Hanna of Starbucks, which uses only paper cups. He says his company is working with paper mills to increase the recycling of its cups and aims to have recycling bins in all its stores by 2015.
Paul Kalinka, whose online Change.org petition for Dunkin' Donuts to kick its foam cup habit has drawn more than 120,000 signatures, is not waiting for corporate America to act. The Plymouth, Mich., resident says he now uses a reusable cup for his caffeine fix.