Janet Babin reports for NYC News:
For the second time in less than three years, New York City is instituting a ban on single-use Styrofoam containers.
The first ban on polystyrene took effect in July, 2015, but was challenged by a coalition recycling firms and plastics manufacturers. They sued the city arguing that the material is recyclable.
New York Supreme Court judge Margaret Chan agreed, overturning the ban before the Sanitation Department even had a chance to start handing out fines. She wrote that the industry had offered up a feasible recycling plan for the containers, and sent the city back to the drawing board.
The city’s new report issued late Friday again found that Styrofoam is impossible to be recycled economically.
The ban’s reinstatement came on the same day as a New York City Council committee held a hearing on a bill that would make Styrofoam take-out containers part of the city’s curbside recycling program. Dozens of New Yorkers filled the committee room to speak for or against.
The bill was backed by the Restaurant Action Alliance and the Dart Container Corporation, one of the largest manufacturers of polystyrene containers. Plastics manufacturers would pay the infrastructure costs to implement the recycling program.
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