Plastic Foam Packaging
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Plastic Pollution | 1 Independent Institute BRIEFING PLASTIC POLLUTION Bans vs. Recycling Solutions By Katie Colton, Camille Harmer, Brian Isom, and William F. Shughart II INTRODUCTION Plastic foam (polystyrene) is one of the most This paper examines: widely used plastics around the world.1 Americans • How EPS is recycled encounter polystyrene products on a daily basis as • Current and potential bans of EPS products a low-cost, moldable, synthetic polymer used to • Negative effects of EPS bans, including create components for automobiles and household impacts on environment and on minorities appliances like refrigerators and microwaves, as well • Potential solutions to EPS pollution as DVD cases, plastic utensils, disposable razors, We conclude that while EPS can have serious and numerous other consumer products. Polystyrene environmental impacts, the negative economic also can be converted into expanded polystyrene and environmental effects associated with banning (EPS)—commonly known as Styrofoam®—which, EPS are so great that municipalities should instead in addition to being inexpensive, is lightweight and a adopt alternatives that resolve such problems cost- good insulator. As such, it is often used for food and effectively. beverage containers, product packaging, and shipping materials. When EPS is used to create food-service RECYCLING PLASTIC FOAM products, it is frequently referred to as food-service One of the main solutions municipalities have foam. explored for mitigating the environmental impact of Recently, lawmakers and environmental groups have EPS is recycling. However, recycling EPS presents targeted EPS because of its purported environmental several challenges distinct from other kinds of impacts. EPS decomposes slowly.2 Wind can blow the plastics (plastic bags, water bottles, and other plastic lightweight material out of trash cans or landfills into containers, like milk jugs). These challenges are one surrounding areas. EPS that ends up in the ocean can major reason many cities choose to ban some EPS contribute to plastic pollution and the degradation of products outright. marine wildlife habitats. The same properties that make EPS ideal for In an attempt to mitigate EPS pollution, some shipping and packaging also make it difficult to municipalities have banned the use of EPS by collect and process for recycling. Curbside collection restaurants and grocery stores. As cities implement is problematic because the material can be blown or consider implementing bans on EPS products, it is around easily even by a slight breeze. EPS also is crucial to understand the options available for dealing difficult to transport in large quantities because, in with EPS and the tradeoffs associated with these terms of mass, a small amount of EPS takes up quite options. a bit of space—the ratio of weight to volume is very Copyright © 2018 by Independent Institute www.independent.org 2 | Katie Colton, Camille Harmer, Brian Isom, and William F. Shughart II low. EPS thus must be condensed for shipping to OVERVIEW OF PLASTIC FOAM recycling centers, which adds extra time and cost to REGULATIONS the recycling process. Some recyclers have addressed No federal regulations regarding EPS production or that problem by using mechanical densifiers (similar disposal have been issued. However, the National to trash compactors) to compress EPS for shipping. Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) does require In addition to transport problems, EPS is hard to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or the sort because it frequently is contaminated by food Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to evaluate and mixed with other kinds of plastic. EPS recyclers packaging materials’ environmental impacts. The must sort clean containers from soiled containers, FDA, in particular, determines whether material then wash and dry the soiled containers before they used for food packaging can safely be recycled.5 As can be recycled.3 Few municipalities accept foamed EPS is 100 percent recyclable, it passes the FDA’s polystyrene products for recycling because the environmental assessment.6 Despite being safe to recycling process is too costly. recycle, however, only a few states have implemented While challenging to process, a number of options recycling programs for EPS. Some EPS products nevertheless are available for recycling EPS. Many people simply are too difficult to recycle with currently reuse EPS products, for example, hoping to reduce their available technologies. environmental impacts. Shipping companies sometimes On average, 2.3 million tons of EPS end up in accept returns of packing peanuts and other foamed landfills each year in the United States.7 That is plastic packaging materials. Some recyclers will accept fewer than 7 percent of the nearly 33.54 million contaminated packaging and clean it before recycling. tons of plastic disposed of every year. To reduce the Clean EPS typically is either shredded to be reused as amount of EPS that ends up in landfills, more than ceiling insulation or packing peanuts or is melted down a hundred U.S. cities and counties in eleven states and turned into pellets used to create harder plastic have adopted local ordinances that restrict or ban items, like toys or faux wood and metal. EPS also can be outright the use of foam containers, utensils, and burned to generate heat that can be harnessed for energy, packaging materials.8 Such ordinances were put in but that is not a common recycling method at present. 4 place as early as 1989, with Sonoma, California, and Figure 1. Map of EPS bans across the United States10 www.independent.org Plastic Pollution | 3 Carmel, California, being the first two cities to ban While New York City struggled through the plastic foam containers.9 court system, San Diego sought a different solution. The EPS bans in effect, as of 2015, are shown in Instead of imposing a ban citywide, San Diego began Figure 1. implementing a recycling program effective July 1, More recently, a number of large cities have taken 2017. 21 The plan allows single-family households to steps to eliminate EPS from their refuse streams. recycle food and beverage containers in addition In 2007, San Francisco banned EPS takeout food to EPS shipping materials. San Diego receives containers and initiated a mandatory composting $3.3 million annually in revenue from its recycling ordinance.11 Since then, San Franciscans have seen programs paid by citizens, $90,000 of which it will fees for municipal garbage pickup decline.12 As of use to implement the new program.22 June 28, 2016, San Francisco passed what was, at the California legislators have attempted but failed to time, the most far-reaching EPS ban in the country, implement statewide bans on EPS multiple times. which included packing peanuts, ice chests, dock The most recent attempt was in January of 2018.23 In floats, and even food-packaging products.13 February of 2018, state legislators instead introduced Seattle is another large city that effectively has an alternative to banning EPS. That alternative banned EPS. It did so by introducing the restrictions calls for the creation of a Polystyrene Food Service in stages: Foam products were banned on January Packaging Recycling Organization, which would 1, 2009, non-compostable disposable food packaging be made up of all the manufacturers of food-service was banned by July 1, 2010, and all plastic utensils polystyrene in the state. The organization would then and straws are to be banned by July 1, 2018.14 The pay a fee (essentially a tax) that would be earmarked slower, staged implementation of the ban allowed to pay for the recycling of EPS and help promote companies to more easily find alternatives to EPS. programs to expand recycling or reduce litter from In January of 2015, New York became the EPS.24 Earmarking taxes, however, is no guarantee largest city to ban food-service foam products on that the funds raised for the recycling program will the grounds that recycling the material was not actually be used for that program. Earmarking funds economically feasible.15 Shortly thereafter, the city does not prevent politicians from raiding them to was sued by a coalition comprised of Dart Container cover budget shortfalls elsewhere.25 Corporation (a major manufacturer of EPS goods), The earmarked tax issue should be readily apparent recyclers, the Restaurant Action Alliance NYC (a to anyone who has ever driven a car in California, group of advocates for EPS recycling, but opposed to where federal and state taxes account for 20 percent food-service foam bans), and many local restaurant of the cost of gasoline at the pump. The money raised owners.16 The plaintiffs argued that because all EPS by the state’s gas tax is “earmarked” for road repairs is recyclable and Dart, other manufacturers, and and improvements. From 2007 to 2010, however, $1.3 some recyclers had offered to manage and fund billion in transportation funds were used to fill public the city’s EPS recycling system, the ban should not spending holes rather than potholes.26 The city of San be implemented. New York Supreme Court judge Bernardino re-appropriated so much money from gas Margaret Chan agreed with the manufacturers, and tax funds in 2012–2013 that not enough was left to the city rescinded the ban.17 However, Dart offered fund projects listed in the city’s capital improvement only to purchase the equipment initially required to plan.27 The new proposal to tax food-service recycle the foam and to pay for the recycling “for at polystyrene manufacturers could very well leave least five years.”18 In May of 2017, New York City them on the hook to fund far more than a recycling reimposed the ban, citing the City of New York program, with no guarantee that enough money will Department of Sanitation’s conclusion that food- be collected to fully fund the program itself.