{"id":304686,"date":"2010-02-10T23:05:20","date_gmt":"2010-02-11T04:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chicagopressrelease.com\/?p=17631"},"modified":"2010-02-10T23:05:20","modified_gmt":"2010-02-11T04:05:20","slug":"citywide-styrofoam-ban-proposed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/304686","title":{"rendered":"Citywide styrofoam ban proposed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Chicago restaurants, stores and cafeterias would be prohibited from using Styrofoam and other \u201cpolystyrene foam\u201d products that clog landfills, under a crackdown proposed Wednesday by the City Council\u2019s most influential alderman.<\/p>\n

Finance Committee Chairman Edward M. Burke (14th) drafted the ban after learning that Chicago Public Schools use and throw away 35 million Styrofoam lunch trays each year.<\/p>\n

If the City Council approves the ban, violators would face fines ranging of up to $300 for the first offense to $500 for subsequent violations. <\/span><\/p>\n

City Hall would be free to grant exemptions, only if there is \u201cno alternative that is both affordable and compostable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis particular product remains in landfills forever and ever and never breaks down. … We\u2019ve got to start thinking about how to change people\u2019s habits. … We\u2019ll be on the cutting edge of trying to regulate the environment,\u201d Burke said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re interested in snapping our fingers and stopping it immediately. But, I don\u2019t see why we can\u2019t explore how to phase in this kind of a change. … Sometimes, you have to push the envelope a little bit in order to get to where we ought to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

David Vite, president of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, denounced the proposed ban as anti-business and ill-conceived at a time when unemployment stands at 11 percent statewide and even higher in Chicago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should be trying to think of ways to get people back to work instead of focussing on things that add cost to the Chicago business community,\u201d Vite said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hear so often, \u2018This is just a little thing.\u2019 Well, there are dozens of little things that add up to Chicago not being friendly to business. This is another example. I know Ald. Burke is well-meaning. But, this is one of those things that doesn\u2019t stand the test of good judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n

If there were \u201cbetter, less expensive and more appropriate\u201d alternatives to Styrofoam products, businesses would \u201cgravitate to them,\u201d Vite said. But, they are simply \u201cnot available,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, we\u2019ll either have cold or spoiled food or people won\u2019t have available to them vehicles to take their food out,\u201d Vite said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat market was created because we have two-income households where people have to take their lunch to work and cafeterias that don\u2019t have the ability to keep things warm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two years ago, Burke and Ald. Marge Laurino (39th) dropped their push for a San Francisco-style ban on plastic bags in favor of a watered-down version less costly and burdensome to retailers.<\/p>\n

It required Chicago retailers who make 25 percent of their gross sales from food or pharmaceuticals to install plastic bag recycling bins \u2014 and distribute bags that state \u201c\u201dPlease reuse or recycle.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time, the aldermen warned that, if the compromise plan didn\u2019t curb the flood of plastic bags now stuck in trees and jamming landfills and waterways, Chicago could either broaden the mandate beyond the 20,000 stores already covered or follow San Francisco’s lead by banning plastic bags.<\/p>\n

Environmentalists had urged aldermen to take the bold step of imposing a tax of 10 cents or more on plastic bags. That helped the Republic of Ireland reduce plastic bag usage by 94 percent.<\/p>\n

Read the original article from FOX Chicago News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services<\/a><\/p>\n

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Chicago restaurants, stores and cafeterias would be prohibited from using Styrofoam and other \u201cpolystyrene foam\u201d products that clog landfills, under a crackdown proposed Wednesday by the City Council\u2019s most influential alderman. Finance Committee Chairman Edward M. Burke (14th) drafted the ban after learning that Chicago Public Schools use and throw away 35 million Styrofoam lunch […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-304686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}