Change of heart revives foam ban

An effort to bar Oahu businesses from using foam takeout containers has been renewed, this time by a Honolulu City Council member who said she opposed a similar proposal in 2014.

Councilwoman Kymberly Pine this week introduced Bill 71, which bans food vendors from using polystyrene foam containers when serving prepared food. Instead, the vendors would need to use disposable food service containers made from compostable material.

The bill also bans food packagers from using polystyrene when packing meat, eggs, bakery products or other food.

The measure doesn’t specify when the proposed law would take effect, leaving that to be determined later.

A clause allows for the city Department of Environmental Services, which would enforce the law, to grant exemptions for businesses that demonstrate that the ban would cause them undue hardship.

The bill is expected to get its first airing before the full Council on Wednesday.

Current law allows restaurants to use foam containers, as long as they do not contain chlorofluorocarbons.

Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa signed a similar measure banning the use of plastic containers, beginning Dec. 31, 2018. A proposal to ban foam containers is also before the Hawaii County Council.

Efforts to impose a statewide ban have stalled in the Legislature.

Pine told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Thursday that she was not in favor of Bill 40 (2014) when it was first introduced by former Councilman Stanley Chang and Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi. That bill died in committee.

Pine said she had a change of heart about the issue since the birth of her daughter, now 2-1/2 years old. “It’s been found that (polystyrene) containers have carcinogens that cause cancer, especially when you heat it up,” Pine said.

“When I became a mother, something changed in me as a leader,” she said. “I started thinking more about her life and her future, and how I wanted to use my position to benefit the land and her future, and started to look at things that we need to start changing, even if they’re hard.”

The 2014 proposal focused on the effect littered foam containers would have on the environment and sea creatures. Food industry representatives lobbied in 2014 to kill the bill, arguing that the ban would be burdensome.

When the 2014 bill was killed, Council members instead adopted Resolution 14-175, calling for Environmental Services to study the impacts of single-use food service containers. The June 2015 report said the agency was not provided enough resources to explore the health effects of the containers. Additionally, “funds were not available to conduct an extensive study of the financial and non-financial impacts of a partial or total ban of single-use food containers,” the report said.

While businesses were able to convince her in 2014 that a ban would be too expensive, Pine said she’s found a growing number of eateries going foam-free.

Among them is Crystal Evans’ Hiking Hawaii Cafe, which has eschewed the use of polystyrene containers for its takeout business since it opened three years ago.

Evans has removed other plastic-containing items from her inventory, moving to wooden utensils on takeout items, steel straws for her sit-down customers and paper-boxed water instead of traditional plastic bottles.

She charges a flat 20-cent fee for eco-friendly, compostable containers and utensils.

The one exception now is she still has to use plastic straws for smoothies “because they don’t make big-enough straws for smoothies,” Evans said.

Evans acknowledged that it does cost her more to go nonplastic. “I looked at the prices and it was a lot more,” she said. “But being a hiking (tour guide) company, that’s one of the commitments we made … to try to make a difference.”

As more restaurateurs have switched to nonplastic items, their prices have gone down, she said. “That’s made it easier,” she said. “If more restaurants would jump on and use eco-friendly materials, the prices would go down even more.”

“She’s a small-business owner and she’s doing it,” said Pine, who is starting a series of self-made videos showing restaurants that are abandoning polystyrene.