As of New Year’s Day, expanded polystyrene containers – better known by the brand name Styrofoam – will be banned in Plymouth restaurants and take-out establishments, including supermarkets that serve prepared foods.
The town is joining more than 60 cities and towns across Massachusetts in banning the containers, which are considered a threat to people’s health as well as the environment.
“I think it’s absolutely a step in the right direction,” said Ken Stone, a member of the board of directors of the environmental group Sustainable Plymouth.
The Plymouth Board of Health passed the ban in June but delayed its implementation to allow businesses to use up their existing stock of foam containers.
The board cited the fact that styrene, the key ingredient in polystyrene, is on the National Toxicology Program’s list of substances reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen. Styrene can leach from containers into food and beverages. It is also a major component of plastic debris in the oceans, and marine animals often mistake it for food.
Also, polystyrene containers are not a part of the town’s recycling program.
The ban is not expected to have much of an impact on local businesses because few restaurants and take-out shops still use Styrofoam, Stone said.
“A lot of our food establishments had already started implementing this change long before we actually implemented this regulation,” said Karen Keane, the town’s director of public health.
Jay Kimball, owner of Wood’s Seafood, said his waterfront restaurant stopped using Styrofoam a year ago. Before that, he said, he used Styrofoam bowls for chowder but switched to cardboard containers.
Wood’s did not use Styrofoam for anything else, he said.
“Fried seafood in a Styrofoam container is just awful because what happens is the moisture and the heat from the fried fish just turns into water, goes up to the inside of the top of the Styrofoam box, and then just drips down,” Kimball said. “We’ve never used Styrofoam for any of our plates that people are going to eat dinner at or take home.”
Kimball said the change was welcomed by patrons of the well-known restaurant and fish market.
“You have customers that are very educated,” he said. “They are very smart and they know about the polystyrenes in the Styrofoam, and they know that it’s not good and doesn’t break down in a landfill.”
Nina Peters, co-owner of the downtown restaurants The Tasty and Honey Baby, said both have always shunned foam containers for take-out and leftovers.
“Styrofoam has never been one of our things,” Peters said. The ban, she added, is “a good thing.”
Fred Thys can be reached at fred@plymouthindependent.org