Mpls. committee votes to ban plastic foam containers

A Minneapolis City Council committee is recommending a ban on plastic foam containers in restaurants.

The Health, Environment & Community Engagement Committee voted Monday to prohibit foam cups and take-out containers. If it is approved by the full council next week, it would take effect next April.

If that occurs, Minneapolis would join more than 100 cities and towns across the nation that have passed similar laws.

"These materials, as it's been noted, float, and are white and are gross and impair recreation and tarnish our shorelines," said Trevor Russell, water program director for Friends of the Mississippi. The organization supports the ban.

"They are durable in our environment," Russell said. "They leach toxins into our environment. They are unnecessary. They are unsustainable, and it is frankly time for them to go."

Manufacturers of foam products urged the City Council not to ban their products from restaurants and to pursue recycling the material instead.

Expanded polystyrene, the type of plastic foam used in such containers, is recyclable. But the foam contains little plastic and transporting it to market is economically unfeasible, city officials say.

Plastic foam is better for the environment than the alternatives, said Mike Levy, a lobbyist for the Washington-based American Chemistry Council.

"Because polystyrene is 95 percent air, it generates less energy, significantly less water usage -- up to four times -- but also, it creates a lot less solid waste, both on weight and volume," Levy said.

Officials with the Minnesota Restaurant Association say the group's members can live with a ban, but requested it be postponed to give businesses more time to adapt.