In New York State, a bill before the legislature would include a ban on polystyrene foam in food packaging after 1991, and impose special taxes on its manufacturers. In Los Angeles, the mayor orders city departments to stop buying foam coffee containers and similar products. In other cities and states in some parts of the country, government officials, beset by shortages of landfills and municipal incinerators, but no shortage of garbage, are zeroing in on a popular, highly visible target: plastic foam packaging.
As manufacturers of plastics-including the foam containers used by the fast-food industry-we're deeply concerned about the solid waste disposal problem. But the problem has to be attacked logically and scientifically, without a helter-skelter rush to anoint villains. For the fact is, there are no villains, and we're all "guilty." Every household, every business, every office-indeed, every American-contributes to the refuse stream every day. To zero in on the fast-food business, or the plastics industry, is to engage in scapegoating, not problem-solving.
Here, then are some facts-along with some myths-about plastic foam containers:
Myth: It's frivolous for the fast-food industry to use plastic foam containers.
Fact: Consumers want their food fresh, clean, and served at certain temperatures, without sogginess. Foam best meets these demands. Restaurants that don't use foam to meet these demands do use a form of paper-but the paper is coated with plastic or wax to do its intended job. Either way, solid waste is generated.
Myth: But paper is biodegradable and foam isn't.
Fact: Paper isn't necessarily biodegradable, and coated paper certainly isn't. In a sanitary landfill, where air and sunlight are absent and moisture is limited. it often takes decades for even uncoated paper to degrade. In fact, archeologists, probing old landfills, have recovered intact newspapers in which they could read dates of 40 years ago. And these old papers, obviously, weren't plastic-coated, the way fast-food containers are.
Myth: Foam packaging is among the prime reasons landfills are rapidly reaching capacity and closing down.
Fact: Paper substitutes for fast-food foam packaging add as much weight to a landfill as does foam. According to studies done for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, less than one-half of one percent of the municipal waste stream is fast-food foam packaging. EPA says 37 percent is paper and paperboard, with yard waste accounting for about 18 percent. Ten percent is glass, and a like amount is metals. Some seven percent is plastics. So your neighborhood fast-food restaurant and its foam packages are hardly the cause of the landfill shortage.
Myth: When they're incinerated, plastic foam containers emit harmful elements into the air. Paper packaging doesn't.
Fact: Proper incineration of foam produces virtually nothing but harmless carbon dioxide and water vapor. Furthermore, combustion of plastics in an incinerator contributes no more to pollution than paper, wood, or even leaves. But the truth is that these materials can be burned without harmful emissions in properly equipped, modern incinerators, as is being done all over the world.
Myth: Disposable paper products are recycled; plastic foam isn't.
Fact: With regard to the food industry, the recycling argument is a red herring. Neither foam nor paper food containers are recycled because they contain residual food. Recycling is a valid solution to part of the overall waste problem, but is irrelevant in the foam vs. paper comparison.
Actually, the real issue is one of lifestyles, and not specific packaging materials. The need for a package never goes away. What's at stake are the often-intangible things we speak of as modern conveniences. Do American mothers-and fathers-really want to go back to boiling cloth diapers?
We'll be commenting on the larger solid waste disposal issue from time to time. But plastic foam itself isn't a significant part of the problem, and the argument of paper vs. plastic is a spurious one. The waste problem is complex and won't be solved by simplistic actions. Multiple solutions are needed. More recycling, siting of new landfills, construction of new incinerators.
© 1988 Mobil Corporation
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