LETTER TO THE EDITOR: City of Framingham Needs To Weigh Pros & Cons Before Deciding To Ban Styrofoam

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FRAMINGHAM – I am a former Framingham resident who owned a Styrofoam®/Polystyrene recycling company for many years. I have a few comments about banning this product.

Polystyrene is a recyclable product, but at this time, the cost to operate a recycling facility is not cost effective so there are very few places (if any) that have foam recycling programs for single use foam containers.

Before a decision is made to ban individual foam products, I hope the City will address the following questions.

• What alternatives are available to replace single use foam?
• Are the products easily obtainable for small businesses and the consumer?
• Are they more costly to purchase and to create?
• Do the alternatives use more resources to create?
• Can the alternatives be easily recycled?
• Just because an item has a recycle symbol, it doesn’t guarantee that there are established ways or programs to
  recycle them.

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• Are there available resources to recycle city collected alternative items?
• If so, what are the costs to implement and maintain an effective recycling or biodegradable program?
• If not, does it make sense to require alternatives that could be costlier to create and use and, in some cases, work less effectively than single use foam?
• Will the consumer be required to incur additional costs to recycle the alternatives?
• If the alternatives are not recycled will trashing them have the same impact as single use foam?
• Will using alternatives reduce the litter from the single use foam products?

I am sure that there are other things to consider, but I hope the City will consider all of the consequences before deciding whether to ban individual use Styrofoam products or not.

Barbara Sherman

Framingham Native/Milford Resident