18 years later, banned polymer lingers

Despite effective law, many say polystyrene use still can be cut

By Kate Gawf

Pamplin Media Group, Mar 11, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (3 Reader comments)

L.E. BASKOW / PAMPLIN MEDIA GROUP

Jeanne Roy and Recycling Advocates, the group she founded, were instrumental in getting Portland to pass a ban on polystyrene foam containers in 1989. Here she displays more environmentally friendly alternatives.

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In 1989, the city of Portland banned polystyrene foam, what most people call Styrofoam. Why then, you may wonder, is there still so much of it around?

Polystyrene foam can be recycled – sort of. It is only recyclable into other polystyrene foam products, and is more likely than other types of plastic to end up in a landfill.

It’s frequently used for food, yet it’s highly sensitive to food contamination, which renders it not recyclable. And facilities that recycle polystyrene are very few and far between.

Because it’s so bulky, polystyrene foam is expensive to transport. Its light weight makes it difficult to contain. When it begins to disintegrate, it is very easily taken up by air currents and ends up in rivers and oceans.

This is why Portlander Jeanne Roy and a group she founded, Recycling Advocates, got to work in the late 1980s to reduce polystyrene’s presence in Oregon. By the end of 1989, with the help of then-city Commissioner Earl Blumenauer, Roy got her way.

The ordinance stipulates:

“On and after January 1, 1990, no restaurant or retail food vendor shall serve prepared food in any polystyrene foam products.”

Schools are granted an exclusion, based on the idea that they use the material on their premises and can ensure it doesn’t become litter.

Churches also are excluded, as are all other nonprofit organizations such as hospitals and rescue agencies.

Food carts and caterers are required to comply.

“We would’ve liked the ban to go further and include egg cartons and school lunch trays, but the hospitals and the schools convinced the city to exempt them,” Roy says.

Lee Barrett enforced the ordinance for the city in its earliest years.

“If I walked into a restaurant and saw that they were serving a prepared food in a poly container, I’d send them a letter, tell them they had 30 days to change their system,” he says.

After a month, if they were still using the same containers, they would be subject to a penalty.

McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken sued the city and lost, discouraging other franchises from fighting the ordinance.

To this day, fast-food franchises that use polystyrene all over the country have to make different arrangements for their food service in Portland.

Dust enters the food chain

When they first tackled the project, Roy and her group were inspired by a place that already had successfully banned polystyrene – Suffolk County, N.Y.

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