EXPANDED POLYSTYRENE FOAM (EPS)

Expanded Polystyrene is some particularly nasty stuff. It's a foam plastic made from toxic petrochemicals including benzene. It is not biodegradable nor compostable. Instead, it crumbles or photodegrades, breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic microplastic pieces, making it impossible to fully clean up once it is thrown away and escapes into our environment, and allowing it to easily migrate into our food chain and water supplies.

Polystyrene Foam is not accepted in curbside recycling. It's already banned in several other states including neighboring Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, and D.C. because it's so harmful to our health and our environment.

Expanded Polystyrene foam is a human health & environmental justice issue. During the manufacturing process, workers exposed to styrene monomers have an increased risk of lymphoma, leukemia, and other forms of cancer. The industry ranks as the 5th largest creator of toxic wastes in the USA and these risks are especially prevalent in fenceline communities.

Expanded Polystyrene foam contributes to climate change. Single use plastic is derived from fossil fuel extraction and refining processes of oil and natural gas.

Polystyrene foam also makes its way into our storm drains and our waterways.  It pollutes our environment, harms animals, and increases cleanup costs. Once in the water it will absorb 10 times more pesticides, fertilizers and chemicals than other kinds of plastic, increasing toxin exposure to fish and other aquatic animals and on up the food chain.

Safer and more sustainable alternatives are readily available. It’s time to get polystyrene foam out of Delaware once and for all. 

Thank you, Mr. President. None of this is easy. Environmental policy and changing our habits, even when we know something is bad for us is just not an easy thing because there are so many different elements that are affected. There’s the employment element, there’s the convenience element, there are all sorts of other public policy issues. 

But we know how bad plastics are. We know how bad they are when they degrade into our ecosystems, when they degrade into microplastics; they are everywhere. We have an addiction, an addiction that was fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic. I think it’s 200-250x more plastics that we have now in use than we did pre-pandemic because everything is single use and we’re very focused on that. We have to dial that back. We have to dial it back. 

We’ve started that with the single-use plastics and the single-use plastic bags; this is going to be a process. This is opening the door. It’s getting worse and worse every single year. It’s not like we don’t know the health impacts, we do, we’re just kind of choosing not to look at it because we’re so addicted to this stuff. 

Every year, I do the beach cleanups. I do it more than once a year. I lead little groups of folks, particularly young people to get them used to seeing where this stuff ends up. We go along with our bags and our little clipboards and we’re writing down the number of tires and glass bottles and cans and try to write down the number of plastics. First of all, there are thousands and thousands of pieces from sizes that you can pick up to sizes that you can’t. You can’t pick it all up because it’s tiny little pieces. So you have to leave it there. 

So what you’re also left with is: how do we fix this going forward? We have to begin to dial it back and start making some of those difficult decisions that will spur innovation, because public policy needs to go in this direction. Our companies, like DART, thank goodness they’re stepping up and they’re the ones doing the recycling of polystyrene. There’s nobody else doing it here. They’re doing it because they’re affected by it, because it’s part of their bottom line, and because they know, public policy wise, this whole area is evolving. Just like the oil companies that are getting involved in renewables, they know that if they want to stay in communities, they want to continue with the tax base, they’ve got to evolve with the times too. 

We’re part of that evolution. We cause that evolution. We’re the ones that are setting the public policy, because we’re educated on the issues, we listen to all sides, we listen to our colleagues that represent all sides. We respect our colleagues that represent all sides and other viewpoints. When it comes down to time to actually vote on these things, to begin to move this ship in the direction of less plastics, better health for us and our environment, we have to do that. We have the opportunity to do that. We have the opportunity to do that right now, and that’s what I intend to do. I really want to thank my colleague Senator Paradee for bringing this to the floor and having the courage to do this and a number of very big bills this session. Senator Paradee, you are the superstar, and I am going to be voting happily in favor of this bill. Thank you.

Gratefully excerpted from Jan Dell, The Last Beach Cleanup

lastbeachcleanup@gmail.com

www.lastbeachcleanup.org

US Regulatory: Californians Against Waste (CAW) website summarizes harms of polystyrene and local bans. NCEL website has a map of proposed US plastics-related legislation including polystyrene. New York City Sanitation Department Determination for Recyclability of Food-Service Foam is a superb reference (link here). 

• New York: Styrofoam ban in effect in New York City. Suffolk approves EPS foam ban.  Buffalo begins talks of EPS foam ban. 
• Maryland: To become first state to ban foam cups and containers.  More than half of the state's residents already live in places where foam containers are banned for food and drink containers.
• Maine: Statewide ban on foam food and beverage containers moves forward. More than a half-dozen communities in Maine, including Portland and South Portland, already have local ordinances banning foam food and beverage containers
• California: Costa Mesa bans polystyrene containers at city facilities      and events.
• Hawaii: Could be first state to ban plastics (including EPS foam containers) in restaurants.
• Vermont: Senate has given preliminary approval to a bill banning  the plastic pollution trifecta: single-use, carryout plastic bags, foam containers and plastic straws.
• Connecticut: Legislative committee votes to ban Styrofoam boxes.
• Florida: Sarasota to ban polystyrene.
• New Jersey: Legislation on the state level has stalled, so towns are moving forward with bans on plastic bags and polystyrene foam containers

Global News: Updated Survey Global EPS Foam Container Laws 

• Jamaica’s delay of implementing full foam ban until 2021 is unacceptable according to a local government official. Ban on importation of foam products began in 2019. 
• Saint Lucia to implement ban on importation of Styrofoam selected plastic food service containers on June 1, 2019 
• Barbados: Importation of EPS foam banned as of April 1, 2019. July 1, 2019 ban on use of EPS foam products.
• European Parliament: Approves 2021 single-use plastics ban (including EPS foam food products).
• Canada: A ban on EPS foam and straws may be delayed in Vancouver due to concerns of small businesses. Montreal wants to ban single-use plastics and polystyrene foam containers by 2020. 
• Viet Nam: Styrofoam no longer used for food sold to students at some schools. 
• St. Lucia: Importation ban starts on June 1, 2019. Full ban starts on June 1, 2020. 
• Mexico: Oaxaca street vendor replaces Styrofoam with corn husks—and sales are up.
• Thailand: Ban on plastic bags, straws and EPS foam containers planned for 2022. By the end of 2019 Thailand will be free from three types of plastic – microbeads, cap seals and oxo-degradable plastics.
• Brunei: The government is moving towards a ban on imports of Styrofoam and single-use plastic bags in an effort to curb plastic      pollution in the sultanate.

Fast Food Companies: Updated Survey of use of EPS Foam – Plastic Pollution Coalition’s Global Fast Food Plastic Survey.

• Burger King: Sierra Rise launches a petition campaign to pressure Burger King to stop serving EPS foam cups. 
• McDonalds: Recap of McDonald’s decision to eliminate EPS foam cups.      

US Colleges: Updated Survey of use of EPS Foam – The Last Beach Cleanup’s U.S. College Plastic Survey.

• University of New Hampshire: Approved ban on EPS foam food products on campus.       

EPS Foam Container Harms:

• UK:      Swan seen eating EPS foam food container in lake
• Hawaii: "Polystyrene foam containers are ultra-light, produce litter on land, and often are blown into the ocean, where they harm marine life, including sea birds, fish, mammals, and even our precious corals that protect Hawai'i's shorelines," Kimiko LaHaela Walter  wrote on behalf of the Hawaii Reef and Ocean Coalition.
• Minnesota: Eureka Recycling, which collects and processes recycling in St. Paul, doesn’t accept black plastic or plastic foam because both are difficult to sort and sell, said co-president Kate Davenport. When      those items are put into recycling bins, they contaminate otherwise recyclable items.
• Florida: Styrofoam is a “tangler that can endanger staff who sort or remove them, damage equipment, reduce the number of quality recyclable  items and significantly increase processing costs”.

Innovations:

• Igloo:      offers $10 cooler made from recycled paper and paraffin wax. 

Headlines Promoting False Facts, Solutions & Confusion:

• Polystyrene recycling programs expand despite bans. Dart Container claims that it operates 100 EPS foam “drop-off” recycling centers across the US. The reality is that very few locations accept contaminated EPS foam food service products and the Home for Foam  website contains many errors. Inspection of the map shows that about 30 states do not have drop-off sites to recycle EPS foam from consumers.