starting in july, singleuse foam packaging will be banned in new york city. what are the alternatives &ndash and what will a foamfree city look likenew york styrofoam ban leaves city&rsquos food carts at loose endswashington goes green and bans plastic foam containerswill polystyrene cancer concerns prompt brands to changenew york will ban singleuse foam packaging from july 1 2015. photograph spencer plattgetty imagesnew york this month became the biggest us city to ban polystyrene foam, often called styrofoam. mayor bill de blasio announced the ban, which will take effect 1 july, after the city&rsquos sanitation department determined that polystyrene foam is nonrecyclable, a hazard to marine wildlife and a contaminant to the city&rsquos organics program.the ban will affect food and drinks providers across the city, many of whom use polystyrene foam packaging to serve their customers. the city allows for around 3,000 food vendors, and upwards of 20,000 restaurants reside across the five boroughs. polystyrene foam has been the goto material for takeout containers for decades &ndash mainly for its low cost and effective heat insulation. but it&rsquos also created a problem for the city&rsquos waste program.in 2014, new york&rsquos sanitation department collected approximately 28,500 tons of expanded polystyrene, and estimates that around 90 of that is from singleuse foodservice products like cups, trays and containers. the presence of polystyrene foam in new york&rsquos waste stream has a detrimental effect on the city&rsquos organic collection program, the department says. during the collection process, foam can break down into small pieces that get mixed in with and contaminates organic material, rendering it unmarketable for anaerobic digestion or composting.new york is not the first to come to this conclusion. styrofoam&rsquos apparent burden on waste reduction and the local environment has seen city after city banning it. more than 70 cities across the country are already enforcing bans &ndash or have set dates for the ban to start &ndash including washington dc, minneapolis, san francisco, oakland, portland, albany and seattle.however, new york&rsquos ban could be a gamechanger, because of the city&rsquos population of more than 8 million &ndash the country&rsquos largest &ndash and its extensive list of eateries. compare this to san francisco or seattle, for example, who both record populations of fewer than 1 million, and the potential becomes quite clear.advertisementthe ban, which offers businesses a sixmonth grace period from when the law takes effect before fines are imposed, has been on the cards since former mayor michael bloomberg proposed it two years ago. despite this, the announcement has caused mixed reaction from local businesses, consumers and suppliers. some local businesses say they will have to increase prices because of alternatives costing more than the cheaper polystyrene foam. others have agreed that a slight increase in cost is worth the reduced environmental impact.the new york state restaurant association says it will work with the city to educate restaurants on how to comply with the la,w and help them find alternative products that are &ldquobetter for the environment and costeffective&rdquo.and for bigger brands, the ban is likely to accelerate their need to find alternatives. dunkin&rsquo donuts, known for its large polystyrene cups, will comply with the incoming ban and says it will phase the material out completely in the next two or three years.&ldquowe are currently testing a doublewalled paper cup and a recyclable polypropylene cup in limited markets. we will continue to explore and test additional materials as they become available,&rdquo dunkin&rsquo donuts says.this increased need for alternatives is seeing suppliers of green substitutes ready to push their products into the city. vegware, a supplier of 100 compostable packaging, says it is poised to support zerowaste and wastereduction initiatives with its products. the company&rsquos compostable products advocate and consultant, julia wetstein, says that the ban not only benefits the environment. &ldquothe ban allows restaurants and other institutional waste generators to consider the benefits of compostable products that can go along with food scraps to a composting facility, and result in a very desirable and beneficial product for soil amendment,&rdquo she adds.other cities that have banned polystyrene foam food packaging are already seeing significant benefits. a ban set to start from april this year in minneapolis has already encouraged a number of restaurants and fast food businesses to move towards greener packaging, minnesota senator john marty says. &ldquothis ban isn&rsquot causing a huge uproar, despite forcing all of the businesses to make the switch. it definitely is leading to environmentally better packaging &ndash the restaurants are switching to recyclable packaging,&rdquo he says.the ban is being well received by the public, and makes them think about the waste being generated, marty says. &ldquoas a result, i would guess that it changes people&rsquos personal behaviour when they are shopping elsewhere, so it is likely to have an impact beyond the city borders,&rdquo he adds.giving greater insight, the city of seattle has enforced a ban on polystyrene foam singleuse packaging since january 2009. in 2008, the city recorded 516 tons of expanded polystyrene used for food packaging. by 2012, that had dropped to 174 tons.dick lilly, the business manager of the seattle public utilities solid waste division, says the only reason the figure isn&rsquot zero is because the city can only regulate what&rsquos packaged on site. packaged foods imported from outside of the city, such as those used for meat trays in supermarkets, are not controlled. as well as the substantial drop in the city&rsquos polystyrene waste, it has also seen a great influx of greener alternatives. lilly says that when the city first reviewed the number of compostable packaging products, the number was around 70. within four years that grew to roughly 700.like new york, local businesses in seattle complained about the cost impact of alternatives, says lilly. &ldquobut our view was that we were creating a level playing field and we felt we didn&rsquot need to consider additional cost as a hardship,&rdquo he adds.lilly says the effect of banning polystyrene foam products and moving to compostable alternatives is that the compostable packaging becomes the &ldquovehicle for moving leftover food for composting, rather than landfill&rdquo.&ldquoby pushing business towards composting, we&rsquore diverting organics from landfill, which reduces the methane generation from the landfill,&rdquo says lilly. in this instance, new york&rsquos polystyrene ban has the potential to make quite a dent in its waste and methane impacts. 
