PLASTICS AND ENVIRONMENT
New York's EPS foam ban overturned / City vows to appeal / Judge accepts industry's arguments that recycling is viable / Some restaurant owners have switched to paper
In the second positive turn of events for the plastics industry in a single week, a New York State Supreme Court judge overturned the city’s ban on single-trip EPS foam containers for food and beverages – see Plasteurope.com of 13.01.2015 and 14.05.2015. Calling the ban – proposed by former mayor Michael Bloomberg and implemented under his successor, Bill de Blasio – “capricious, irrational and arbitrary,” Justice Margaret A. Chan said “single-serve EPS is recyclable.” She ordered the city sanitation department to develop a plan along the lines of those proposed by Dart Container (Mason, Michigan / USA; www.dartcontainer.com) and its recyclate suppliers.
The city, which had planned the legislation to take effect from July 2015 but refrained from handing out fines, has vowed to appeal the decision to the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest legal instance. “We disagree with the ruling,” a spokesperson for de Blasio’s office told US media, saying the mayor’s office is reviewing options to keep the EPS ban in effect. “The decision is clearly wrong,” Caswell F. Holloway, the city’s former deputy mayor for operations who led the administration’s drive, said in a statement. “The product has inflicted extraordinary environmental harm and should not be in use.”
Arguments on both sides of the ban, which also applied to so-called “packaging peanuts” made of foam, hinged on the question of whether recycling of styrene foam is economically feasible. The city has argued that it is not. However, Dart, in cooperation with PS specialist Plastics Recycling Inc (PRI, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA; www.plastic-recycling.net) and Sims Municipal Recycling (www.simsmunicipal.com), New York City’s designated recycling contractor, has pledged to recover more than 90% of the foam waste estimated at 30,000 t in 2014. The remainder would be landfilled. New York had been the largest US city to ban the foam. Its recycling efforts only began in 2013 under Bloomberg, however. Prior to that, all of the waste was landfilled.
In a city with highly diverse business interests, the New York mayors’ drive to banish EPS gave rise to campaigns both for and against. In opposition, alongside plastics converters and recyclers, were restaurant owners organised in the Restaurant Action Alliance New York City, advised by a deputy to former mayor Rudy Guiliani. Reports said, however, that some food establishment owners had already begun switching from plastic foam to paper and would not switch back as their customers had accepted the environmental argument. One added that paper containers cost more, but prices were coming down as more businesses switched.
As part of the fight to overturn the ban, Dart – which claims to be world’s largest producer of disposable foam cups – and PRI offered to spend USD 23m on the recycling effort, including buying the necessary equipment for the city. PRI also offered to purchase all soft and rigid foam bales from municipal recycler Sims at a price of USD 160/t with a five-year price guarantee. This, the plastics alliance reportedly has calculated, would save nearly USD 760,000 per year if all the PS thrown away in New York City were diverted from landfills and also generate more than USD 2.8m in revenue. Quotes attributed to Justice Chan in US media go even higher.
The city, which had planned the legislation to take effect from July 2015 but refrained from handing out fines, has vowed to appeal the decision to the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest legal instance. “We disagree with the ruling,” a spokesperson for de Blasio’s office told US media, saying the mayor’s office is reviewing options to keep the EPS ban in effect. “The decision is clearly wrong,” Caswell F. Holloway, the city’s former deputy mayor for operations who led the administration’s drive, said in a statement. “The product has inflicted extraordinary environmental harm and should not be in use.”
Arguments on both sides of the ban, which also applied to so-called “packaging peanuts” made of foam, hinged on the question of whether recycling of styrene foam is economically feasible. The city has argued that it is not. However, Dart, in cooperation with PS specialist Plastics Recycling Inc (PRI, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA; www.plastic-recycling.net) and Sims Municipal Recycling (www.simsmunicipal.com), New York City’s designated recycling contractor, has pledged to recover more than 90% of the foam waste estimated at 30,000 t in 2014. The remainder would be landfilled. New York had been the largest US city to ban the foam. Its recycling efforts only began in 2013 under Bloomberg, however. Prior to that, all of the waste was landfilled.
In a city with highly diverse business interests, the New York mayors’ drive to banish EPS gave rise to campaigns both for and against. In opposition, alongside plastics converters and recyclers, were restaurant owners organised in the Restaurant Action Alliance New York City, advised by a deputy to former mayor Rudy Guiliani. Reports said, however, that some food establishment owners had already begun switching from plastic foam to paper and would not switch back as their customers had accepted the environmental argument. One added that paper containers cost more, but prices were coming down as more businesses switched.
As part of the fight to overturn the ban, Dart – which claims to be world’s largest producer of disposable foam cups – and PRI offered to spend USD 23m on the recycling effort, including buying the necessary equipment for the city. PRI also offered to purchase all soft and rigid foam bales from municipal recycler Sims at a price of USD 160/t with a five-year price guarantee. This, the plastics alliance reportedly has calculated, would save nearly USD 760,000 per year if all the PS thrown away in New York City were diverted from landfills and also generate more than USD 2.8m in revenue. Quotes attributed to Justice Chan in US media go even higher.
28.09.2015 Plasteurope.com [232276-0]
Published on 28.09.2015