NYC's ban on plastic foam food containers is overturned
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A judge has struck down New York City’s ban on foam food containers.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Margaret A. Chan, in a ruling Monday, said the ban was “arbitrary and capricious,” the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) report. She also said the city’s contention that the containers could not easily be recycled was wrong.
Chan ordered the city’s sanitation commissioner to reconsider the ban in light of a manufacturer’s proposal to pay for machines that it said could clean and recycle more than 90 percent of the material used to make the containers.
Randy Mastro, a lawyer for the Restaurant Action Alliance New York City, a group of manufacturers, restaurants and recyclers, which sued the city over the ban in April, said the plaintiffs were “gratified” by the ruling.
“We now look forward to working with the city to implement a comprehensive recycling plan that vastly reduces the volume of our city’s waste stream and generates substantial revenue for the city,” he said.
But a spokeswoman for Mayor Bill de Blasio, who implemented the ban in July, said city officials disagreed with the ruling and are looking for a way to appeal it.
“These products cause real environmental harm, and we need to be able to prevent [them] from entering our landfills, streets, and waterways,” she said.
And Eric A. Goldstein, a lawyer for the National Resources Defense Council, said the judge had “glossed over” evidence the containers cannot be recycled.
“There’s not a single major city in the nation that has successfully implemented a recycling program for used polystyrene food containers, and the reason is simple,” he said. “It doesn’t make economical sense.”