Hold the Foam
Can you guess which of Arlington's favorite takeouts serves their hot food in Styrofoam?
Not to the surprise of our readers the Styrofoam question is a much easier one for us. The main use of single use Styrofoam is to keep hot food hot. That is precisely where the trouble begins. Styrofoam breaks down when heated. It leaches chemicals that cannot be broken down by the body and has been linked by the EPA with enough health risks to make it a bad choice for take-food. If that was not bad enough single use Styrofoam is almost never recycled. Arlington County has no mechanism in place to recycle Styrofoam, even though it can be recycled, so the only place it can go is in the trash. When we say it will never goes away we mean it. You will store it in your body, eat it in your seafood and breath it into your lungs. Single use Styrofoam is an offense to everything in nature including you.
The ban on single use Styrofoam should be a much simpler transition, it benefits everyone. Restaurants will sell more takeout, because customers prefer to eat food without the risk of contaminates. The tax payers win because there will be less waste in our trash cans. The environment will benefit because Styrofoam does not biodegrade.
What can you as consumers do to help. Reward business that employ sustainable practices. Ask the hard questions. Does your business recycle? Does your business use products made of recycled and natural materials? Why would you serve in Styrofoam? If they don’t know the risks tell them. If they don’t switch to a healthier option, stop going there. Take the pledge to eliminate Styrofoam from your diet and support the ban on plastic bags and single use Styrofoam.
Can some researchers at Virginia Tech find ways to reuse cleaned styrofoam food plates and containers? Just a suggestion.
Let’s hope that several universities are doing research. I recently read an article on research that is being done by the US military on Styrofoam. It really is a commodity to many interests, but single use Styrofoam is not worth the effort on either end. Look for my next article on grades, trades and the future of Styrofoam. If you come across any interesting facts or research please it my way. In the meantime don’t use it unless you have a way to reuse it.
Thanks for your great comment.
Research is underway on how discarded Styrofoam products can be turned into biodegradable waste using milk and clay. In this way, it will not be as harmful as most people think.
True new research come out everyday and it is not all bad news. In fact the government and some universities are testing Styrofoam in biodesiel and finding out that the polystyrene melts and acts as a fuel injector, so I totally agree, “Styrofoam” is not trash. However, when used once and improperly disposed of, it is a menace. If that was not bad enough, everywhere you look people are consuming hot food from these containers and injecting an unnatural and unhealthy additive to there diet. My position is that as an insulator it is very useful, as an condiment, no so much. Thanks for your comment. Keep me posted on any positive movement on the biodgradable front.