Editorial: We don’t need another report to know that banning polystyrene takeout containers is a good idea

Seven years ago, the Los Angeles County supervisors were on an environmental-protection roll.

The board voted in 2010 to ban single-use plastic bags in unincorporated county areas, long before the Los Angeles City Council and the state Legislature got their acts together. That board also prohibited the use of expanded polystyrene takeout containers — another form of problematic single-use plastic — in county facilities and asked for a study of a wider ban.

A year later, county officials concluded in a lengthy report that banning food providers in unincorporated areas from handing out polystyrene foam clamshell boxes and cups was both feasible and reasonable. And the supervisors did … nothing.

Officially, L.A. County officials were waiting to see what happened with a proposed statewide ban because they rightly concluded that it was preferable to a patchwork of different rules crisscrossing the state. But when the state bill failed amid intense lobbying by the plastics industry, the board did not take action.

On Tuesday, the supervisors have a chance to rectify this lapse and begin work to ban the polystyrene litter that is despoiling the oceans and waterways. Expanded polystyrene (also called plastic foam, and incorrectly referred to as “Styrofoam” by many) takeout containers are a particular environmental threat because they don’t biodegrade — they break down into small pieces that float in the ocean and get eaten by fish or seabirds. It costs local governments millions of dollars to clean up the littered remains of polystyrene cups and boxes.

Regrettably, actually banning polystyrene isn’t on next week’s board agenda. Instead, there is a motion by Supervisor Sheila Kuehl (co-written by Supervisor Janice Hahn) to update the 2011 report and expand its scope to include hard plastic polystyrene takeout ware, such as straws, lids and cutlery. The results would be due in 180 days. It’s laudable that Kuehl wants to address all forms of polystyrene litter, but six months? That’s just long enough for people to forget about the issue. Furthermore, the board doesn’t have a great track record of following up on reports that it requests.

We don’t need another report to know that banning single-use polystyrene plastic is a good idea. But if the board demands one, it might speed things up to examine some of the 100 California cities or counties that already have bans in place. Culver City, for example, did extensive research on both hard and foam polystyrene takeout ware in advance of its City Council voting to ban single-use polystyrene just a few months ago.

California legislators failed the environment earlier this year when they couldn’t round up the votes — again — to pass a statewide ban on polystyrene takeout containers. But county supervisors have a chance to step up and become environmental standard-bearers once more.

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