Posted on 02/14/2013 12:57:17 PM PST by SeekAndFind
We all saw it coming and now it’s happening — New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is going to announce an official ban on styrofoam containers in his State of the City address today. Just to clarify once again, uppercase Styrofam is a trademarked product used in insulation, while what we all know as styrofoam is really extruded polystyrene. Moving on!
The ban on styrofoam is part of a larger program the mayor has planned for his last year in office, which will also include more recycling, a curbside food-composting pilot program and more electric vehicles cruising the city streets.
His office released a few portions of his speech ahead of time where it’s clear his focus is on improving the city’s environment. This, after pushing through initiatives like a ban on large, sugary drinks to improve the public health.
There will be a new requirement for 20% of all new public parking spaces to include spots to charge electric vehicles, reports Bloomberg News, which would mean 10,000 new spots in the next seven years after the City Council approves it.
And for those residents who are sick of having a large plastic bin full of food waste in their refrigerator that their roommate hasn’t hauled to the compost drop-off spot in months (ahem), a new program to begin collecting compost would kick off in State Island and go citywide if it works out.
And then there’s the styrofoam, that ubiquitous white substances that cradles hot deli delights and cups full of street cart coffee alike.
“One product that is virtually impossible to recycle and never bio-degrades is styrofoam,” Bloomberg is planning on saying. “Something that we know is environmentally destructive and that may be hazardous to our health, that is costing taxpayers money and that we can easily do without, and is something that should go the way of lead paint.”
That plastic foam makes up about 20,000 tons of the city’s waste each year, said the mayor’s office. A ban would need to be approved by the City Council and if it goes through, will join similar actions taken in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. Things are getting very West Coast around here, eh?
In addition, Bloomberg wants to double the city’s recycling rate to 30% by 2017 by doubling the 2,000 containers that the public uses to sort its waste. A new recycling plant will also open in Brooklyn to accept plastic that wasn’t able to be recycled before like salad containers and yogurt cups.
It remains to be seen how restaurants and other food establishments will take the styrofoam ban, but if it costs more to use more environmentally-friendly containers, we’re sure it won’t be a pleasant reaction.
The rats are going to love that!
New Yorkers need to build a wall around themselves to protect themselves from reality.
In essence, if it makes your life more enjoyable,
BAN IT.
I’m glad I don’t live in New Yawk; being a subject of emperor 0bama is already a full time job and I wouldn’t have any time left to serve emperor Bloomie!
When Styrofoam is outlawed only outlaws will have Styrofoam!
Mayor Bloomie is King Baby who always wants it HIS way!
When to we get a Bloomberg Ban?
This mayor guy clearly has too much time on his hands (not to mention ego) and nothing more important to focus on in such a peaceful and thriving metropolis as New York City.
He can have my Styrofoam gun when he pulls it out of my dead coke and salt encrusted hands.
Bloomberg is trying to make San Angeles a reality! (Demolition Man)
And exactly who is going to pay for the electricity?
He just wants to keep people from making home-made napalm. There goes another fun experiment. /s
They can inhale all they want, but exhaling releases deadly greenhouse gasses.
This guy is truly insane. Just *what* styrofoam cups is he talking about? You buy a coffee and it comes in a paper cup. You buy a soda, it comes in a plastic cup or a paper cup with wax on it. I can’t even remember the last time I saw a styrofoam cup. I think I saw one last summer when it was hot and somebody was selling them in a deli filled with ice.
The fact is there no bombing of the environment with styrofoam. This is just more power flexing by the despot because he couldn’t think of anything else to ban.
He bans everything except illegals who I see every morning lined up down the block at the food stamp place at 32-20 Northern Blvd
Queens, NY 11101 (for those who want to see for themselves on Google maps street level) Food stamps which BTW are no longer food stamps but credit cards, or what they call “EBT cards”, which is plain old money that you can use to buy anything that has a CC machine at the register.
Let me go to Mexico and see how much free money the Mexican government will give me. Since Bloomberg has cops out 2 in the morning stuffing parking tickets all over my car because the city “needs money”, or stuffing “equipment violation” tickets in my windshield the same night somebody decided to smash my side view mirrors overnight (probably an illegal)I figure the Mexican government owes me about a couple thousand bucks.
RE: When to we get a Bloomberg Ban?
He’s out next year and won’t run again (He’s had 3 terms). Unfortunately, the fav to replace him (and his successor designate), Christine Quinn( a Lesbian who recently “married” her partner ) is just as bad.
She demands that new buildings ONLY have Al-Gore approved type “dual-flush” flush toilets.
They call her Bloomberg Mini-me.
Even worse, unlike Bloomberg, she is putting the NYPD on notice that she will fight their highly successful stop-and-frisk system that has effectively made NYC one of the safest big cities in the world.
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