SALON

Thursday, Feb 7, 2013 11:15 PM UTC

Bloomberg considers a ban on Styrofoam

The mayor's latest move could mean big changes are in store for food vendors -- and city landfills

By

Topics: Environmentalism, mayor bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg, styrofoam, , ,

Bloomberg considers a ban on Styrofoam (Credit: Shutterstock)

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is considering banning Styrofoam cups and containers, according to a Sanitation Department official.

“We’re studying all the different things in our waste stream. We want to make sure that everything in our waste stream is recyclable,” Ron Gonen, deputy commissioner for recycling at Sanitation, told the New York Post.

The packaging — popular among delis, restaurants and food vendors around the city but long maligned by environmentalists — is nearly impossible to recycle, Gonen added.

And it’s really dang expensive to throw away.

According to the Post, it costs the city an average of $86 per ton to landfill some 2 million tons of regular garbage like Styrofoam every year. Recycling ends up being far cheaper, coming in around $10 a ton for paper and about $14 a ton for glass and plastic, the most likely packaging alternatives to Styrofoam.

The administration hasn’t confirmed anything, but if the plan goes through there is certainly going to be some blowback (“First he tells us how much we can drink, then he tells us what we can drink out of!”), and a cost burden for small business owners is a real concern. But supporters of the ban say ditching Styrofoam is playing the long game — shouldering costs upfront in an effort to reduce our reliance on something that is bad for the planet and plenty expensive to throw out.

And while sure, environmental finger-wagging can be hard to take coming from a billionaire like Bloomberg, the ban is probably a good idea.

Whether or not the administration will move forward with the plan still remains to be seen. “It may or may not be a component of the overall plan,” Gonen, who oversees recycling and environmental sustainability initiatives, said of the proposal.

 

Katie McDonough is an assistant editor for Salon, focusing on lifestyle. Follow her on Twitter @kmcdonovgh or email her at kmcdonough@salon.com. More Katie Mcdonough.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 6 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
349 points350 points | 116 comments
vote
How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government -- "...much of the U.S. economic security support system consists of subsidies for the affluent in the form of tax breaks, like those for private retirement savings plans such as 401(k)s and private employer-provided health insurance."
65 points66 points | 3 comments
vote
Doug Henwood: Capitalism Thrives on Class Exploitation
38 points39 points | 4 comments
vote
Jon Karl makes things worse: He regrets “inaccurate” Benghazi email but says his story based on it “still entirely stands.” Really. ABC News?
37 points38 points | 12 comments
vote
FBI reportedly joins Bachmann campaign finance probe
39 points40 points | comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations