What do you Think about Excess Food Packaging?


Following the lead of San Francisco, Oakland and Santa Monica, more and more municipalities are considering mandating that takeout food packaging be made from recyclable or compostable materials, which diverts packaging from landfills and encourages the use of material that degrade in the marine environment, like paperboard. Currently, unrecyclable takeout food packaging like foamed polystyrene are the second largest component of litter, and are a large component of marine debris.  How do you feel about food packaging ordinances? Do you have questions for CAW employees? This forum is your place to discuss these issues.

 

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Polystyrene bans

Submitted by Aion on February 12, 2007 - 19:07.

The City of Santa Monica has just banned all styrofoam and non-recyclable plastics from restaurant take-out.  The restaurants (predictably) are complaining about cost - does anyone have good sources for biodegradable utensils, plates etc?  I think once there are enough suppliers that this should be possible to enact for all of California.


Of course, I'd love to see it apply to packaged prepared food as well (the stuff you find at Trader Joes), since I use a lot more of that than take-out.  Maybe we should start a campaign for Trader Joes to stop using non-recylable plastics, and to use less packaging in general, especially for produce.