Oregon lawmakers once again debate a ban on foam food containers

A bunch of Oregon lawmakers is hoping that new blood within the state Home and Senate assist make this the yr the state outlaws meals containers produced from plastic foam.

Underneath Senate Invoice 543, meals distributors can be banned from providing ready meals in single-use containers fabricated from polystyrene foam — typically often called Styrofoam — starting in 2025.

The invoice bought its first listening to earlier than a Senate committee on Tuesday, with an array of environmental advocates lining up in assist — at the same time as restaurant representatives and business gamers argued the invoice is overkill.

Related proposals have been floated repeatedly in Salem, the place lawmakers have proven an urge for food for curbing using plastics merchandise that always wind up as litter and might discover their means into the meals chain. However whereas cities all through the state have enacted their very own bans on foam meals containers, state lawmakers have but to set a coverage for all of Oregon.

In 2019, a invoice to outlaw the merchandise noticed repeated setbacks. First it didn’t cross the state Home — in a vote taken on Earth Day. Whereas that defeat proved momentary, the invoice was rejected a second time in a vote within the state Senate.

A significant sticking level 4 years in the past was a Tigard firm known as Agilyx, which recycles plastic foam. Foam merchandise usually are not eligible for curbside recycling, however the firm’s presence within the Portland metro space satisfied quite a few Democrats to oppose an outright ban; they hoped the state may create a greater system for recycling foam meals containers. These Democrats joined with Republicans — who broadly opposed the invoice — to tank the proposal.

However the state Legislature seems to be very completely different this yr than it did in 2019. Greater than a 3rd of the Home’s 60 members are model new to the constructing, whereas the 30-member Senate contains seven new faces (most of them former state representatives).

These adjustments may make a distinction as SB 543 strikes ahead — even because the broad outlines of debate over the coverage have modified little.

“For a lot of birds, fish and plenty of different types of marine life, foam particles can resemble plankton and even eggs of different animals and are mistaken for meals,” Charlie Plybon, the Oregon coverage supervisor for the Surfrider Basis, wrote in supportive testimony. “From the very backside to the highest of the meals chain foam particles are all too typically ingested, carry toxins up the ocean meals chain, toxins that will also be present in people.”

Teams like Surroundings Oregon, Metro, the Oregon Environmental Council, and the Oregon State Public Curiosity Analysis Group have all supplied assist of the invoice. They argue that foam merchandise like cups and meals containers are particularly pernicious, as a result of they break down into small items very simply.

In the meantime business teams say {that a} ban would add one other unneeded layer of regulation onto a 2021 regulation, which would require producers of plastic packaging to take accountability for his or her merchandise — and fund applications to soundly eliminate them.

“The Legislature ought to permit [the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality] and stakeholders to finish the… rulemaking course of first earlier than proposing sweeping packaging coverage adjustments that may undoubtedly add state administrative prices and be unduly burdensome for the regulated group,” testimony from 12 business opponents stated.

SB 543 would apply solely to containers that carry ready meals and drinks — to not merchandise like foam egg cartons in grocery shops. The invoice’s sponsor, state Sen. Janeen Sollman, D-Hillsboro, initially included language within the invoice that will have set tips for containers that distributors may use as an alternative. After pushback from enterprise teams that these tips have been unreasonably burdensome, Sollman is proposing to delete the language and as an alternative create a process drive to review viable replacements.

Whereas Oregon has no statewide ban on Styrofoam meals containers, roughly 10 cities within the state have adopted their very own – together with Portland, Medford, Eugene, Ashland and Florence. Eight states, together with Washington, have adopted some guidelines prohibiting plastic foam containers, based on legislative analysts.