Foam burger boxes and ice cream cups could eventually go the way of the flimsy plastic shopping bag—banned throughout California.
It’s not likely to happen this year. Environmentalists who push for the bans lost a big fight last month when the Legislature voted down a bill that would have banned foam takeout containers statewide.
But growing pressure from communities that are passing the bans could be a game changer in the future, as environmentalists continue to make the case that the foam plastic known as polystyrene is associated with myriad ecological hazards. It doesn’t biodegrade. It easily becomes litter because it’s so light. It breaks down into small plastic bits that flow into waterways and harm wildlife.
With inaction in the state Capitol, the environmentalists’ war on plastic turns to cities and counties.
“That is going to be a continuing strategy for interests that don’t have the muscle to go to the Legislature or the money to go to the statewide ballot. They are increasingly going to go to local governments,” said Mike Madrid, a Republican political consultant who tracks ordinances common across California cities.
More than 100 cities and counties in California have already outlawed foam food packaging, a trend that is likely to grow. And as local governments make up their own rules, pressure will mount on the Legislature to create a uniform policy throughout the state.
It’s a playbook environmentalists used effectively when they lobbied for a ban on plastic bags. Year after year, the Legislature rejected a statewide ban on plastic shopping bags. So the green campaign went local, eventually persuading so many California cities to adopt some type of plastic bag ban that by 2014, the Legislature was compelled to act.
Suddenly grocery stores that previously opposed a statewide plastic bag ban made a deal to support it by collecting 10-cent fees for paper shopping bags, arguing that the hodgepodge of local rules made business difficult for store owners and confusing for shoppers.
“It was intentional to create a patchwork of local policies as a means of motivating opponents to come together and find a statewide solution,” said Mark Murray executive director of Californians Against Waste, an environmental advocacy group that backed the plastic bag ban.
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