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News > U.S.

US: Maine is 1st State To Officially Ban Single-use Styrofoam

  • Plastic foam containers are one of the 10 most littered items in the United States.

    Plastic foam containers are one of the 10 most littered items in the United States.

Published 2 May 2019
Opinion

Foams also absorb toxins faster than other plastics and are mistaken for food by marine life, Ashley Van Stone, executive director of Trash Free Maryland, said.

On Tuesday, Maine Governor Janet Mills announced that the state had taken an "important step forward in protecting our environment," after signing a bill making Maine the first U.S. state to officially ban single-use Styrofoam cups and containers.

RELATED: 
Grenada Bans Importation of Styrofoam

"Maine has proven itself an environmental leader once again, this time in eliminating disposable foam containers that have become a common, costly, and deadly form of plastic pollution," Sustainable Maine Director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM), Sarah Lakeman, told the Portland Press Herald.

The bill will ban grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops, food trucks and other similar businesses from using cups or containers made from polystyrene, better known as Styrofoam.

“Polystyrene cannot be recycled like a lot of other products, so while that cup of coffee may be finished, the Styrofoam cup it was in is not,” Mills explained in a statement. “In fact, it will be around for decades to come and eventually it will break down into particles, polluting our environment, hurting our wildlife, and even detrimentally impacting our economy.”

However, hospitals, seafood shippers or vendors of pre-packaged meat are exempt from the ban.

Plastic foam containers are one of the 10 most littered items in the United States, according to the NRCM, which also highlighted that over 256 million pieces of disposable foam cups, plates, bowls, platters, and trays are used every year in Maine alone.

Foams also absorb toxins faster than other plastics and are mistaken for food by marine life, Ashley Van Stone, executive director of Trash Free Maryland, said.

“With the threats posed by plastic pollution becoming more apparent, costly, and even deadly to wildlife, we need to be doing everything possible to limit our use and better manage our single-use plastics—starting with eliminating the use of unnecessary forms like plastic foam,” Lakeman added.

The Maine ban is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2021.

Several states, in the meantime, have also introduced and are reviewing similar measures.

Maryland has already tabled one such bill which could be entered into effect July 1, 2020, six full months before the Maine bill, should the Republican governor sign it.

"I think we've reached a tipping point," Democrat representing Baltimore in Maryland's House of Delegates, Brooke Lierman, said to National Geographic about having to introduce the bill on three different occasions before it was considered.

"People are seeing how ubiquitous single-use plastics are, that they are not recyclable and never going away. People are beginning to understand the importance of living more sustainably."

Bills to ban foam containers are also close to being passed in Colorado, New Jersey and Oregon, U.S. Public Interest Research Groups said. 

The National Caucus of Environmental Legislators has, overall, counted 12 states that have passed or are considering legislation on polystyrene.

More than 150 U.S. cities or regions have banned Styrofoam, the NRCM noted in a press release.

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