banning polystyrene foam for take-out packaging makes a lot of sense. 

Foam is light-weight and breaks apart into small pieces. It is easily, widely dispersed in the environment and impacts our water quality in a big way. 

A study published in 2011 found that 71% of all the plastic flowing through the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers is foam.  From there the foam flows directly out to the ocean and then waves wash it back onto local beaches. It is the second most common form of beach debris in California, according to a study conducted in Orange County.

Click here for additional information on foam.

Foam’s economic impact is huge:

• California’s $46 billion tourism economy is negatively affected by the increasing amount of garbage washing up on its beaches
• Cities are spending more and more taxpayer dollars to clean up beaches and city streets
• Caltrans spends approximately $60 million a year to remove litter and debris from roadsides and highways
• The County of Los Angeles (L.A.) spends $18 million annually on litter cleanup and education
• The City of Long Beach spends $3 million per year cleaning litter from streets and beaches

Foam’s environmental and health impacts are bad and growing

• What isn't collected by street sweepers, manual litter collection, and voluntary  clean-ups gets widely distributed in the environment
• Birds, fish, filter feeding marine organisms, and other animals mistake it for food. Many seabirds are dying of starvation with stomachs full of plastic
• A recent study of fish in the Pacific Ocean found that 36% of the fish sampled had ingested small plastic debris, including foam
• Plastic debris is a vector for pollutants that bioaccumulate in the food chain. Persistent organic chemicals, like PCBs and PAHs, get absorbed onto surface of plastic debris
• When ingested by fish, toxic coated plastics can pollute the human food chain

Worker and consumer health is also at risk.

• Polystyrene foam is manufactured with a monomer called Styrene, a carcinogen, according to the federal government
• Styrene readily leaches out of foam containers into food and beverages
• EPA studies conducted in the 1980s showed that 100% of Americans have Styrene in their bodies
• Styrene is used in all kinds of applications, including injecting it directly into foods to preserve their shelf life, we are all exposed without our knowledge

Polystyrene foam (Styrofoam™) may seem like a cheap convenient material, but that is because its true costs to health and our environment are borne by others, including taxpayers and consumers. California must ban polystyrene take-out food containers. They are not recyclable, and safer, more sustainable alternatives are available.

Find out more and see a download of communities in and out of California that have already banned or restricted these chemicals. 

Fact Sheets

• Download our factsheet on polystyrene litter
• Download the factsheet on styrene
• Download the factsheet on SB 568, which would have banned polystyrene foam in packaging for take-out food (it was not passed during the most recent legilslative session)
• Download the fact sheet on jobs, the economy, and SB 568

Additional Resources

• Read the complete text of SB 568, which was not passed in 2012
  
• See a map of Polystyrene Bans in California
• Download the Responsible Purchasing Network's Containers Purchasing Guide
• Download a comparison of the costs of foam and non-foam containers
• View a comparison of greenhouse gas emissions of various food containers prepared by the Responsible Purchasing Network
• Voluntary bans don't work
• LA Times Editorial - in Favor of Phasing out Foam
• Download the Responsible Purchasing Network's Containers Purchasing Guide

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