en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styrofoam In case you missed it, heres my Washington Times editorial for today: SCAPEGOATING STYROFOAM “Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases,” President Reagan told an August 1986 White House Conference on Small Business. “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” Increasingly, government is exercising a fourth option: “If we dont like it, ban it.” Coming last week in the same news cycle in which the federal Food and Drug Administration announced it was moving to ban unhealthy trans fats, D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Grays proposed citywide ban on Styrofoam went largely unnoticed. But for D.C. businesses and residents, a ban on Styrofoam and other brands of polystyrene foam is likely to be a significantly greater inconvenience and to increase costs, while not doing much to reduce the waste stream. In response to a similar proposal by New York’s meddlesome mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, to outlaw polystyrene foam in the Big Apple, the American Chemistry Council commissioned a study of the prospective impact of such a ban. It found that it would cost New York City businesses, consumers and taxpayers nearly $100 million a year by nearly doubling food-service product costs, while doing little to curtail waste. “In other words, for every $1.00 now spent on plastic foam foodservice and drink containers,” said the report, released in March by the research firm MB Public Affairs, “NYC consumers and businesses will have to spend at least $1.94 on the alternative replacements.” Andrew Moesel, a spokesman for the New York State Restaurant Association further noted that eateries are already absorbing higher food and energy costs, which is particularly problematic for small, neighborhood eateries. “Its one more thing to add to the headwinds they are facing,” he said. The proposed ban on plastic foam is a product of the same Bloombergian mindset that prompted the town of Concord, Mass. — ironically, the cradle of an American Revolution spawned by King Georges similarly arbitrary and capricious diktats — to outlaw single-serving bottled water as of last Jan. 1. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Perrier-swilling effetes in Concord exempted sparkling water from the ban. A staple of coffee shops and fast-food carryout eateries, polystyrene foam is said by Mr. Gray to be a profound environmental hazard and thus must be outlawed within the city limits. “One need only ride around on the banks of the Anacostia and the Potomac,” Hizzoner said at a Wednesday news conference, “and you will see the refuse in the river.” His latest proposal comes about three years after the city imposed a 5-cent fee on retail use of plastic bags, ostensibly for the same reason as the proposed Styro-ban. Styrofoam, which isn’t fully biodegradable, is said to make up a substantial part of the trash found in local waterways, but how does Mr. Gray know it isnt entering the Anacostia upstream in Maryland? More to the point, how does the Styrofoam get into the rivers in the first place? Why not first examine and address that before banning a product that consumers use and like? Then, theres the law of unintended consequences. Paper food-service products, the primary alternative, are not particularly recyclable, either. Nor do they insulate as well as plastic foam, with paper coffee cups, for example, in need of double-cupping or insulating sleeves, creating a net increase not only in costs but in solid waste. Environmental activists who laud the proposed ban say Styrofoam makes up a “substantial portion” of the trash they remove from the river, but discarded tires are also said to be a major component of refuse polluting the Anacostia; will Mr. Gray propose a ban on tires, too? Will FedEx and UPS locations in the District be barred from using styrene foam packing peanuts? Where does it all stop?
Posted on: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 20:49:12 +0000