WESTFIELD – The Health Board is considering its options in eliminating the use of polystyrene, or Styrofoam, used as containers for food and beverages by joining a growing number of communities in the state and nation in banning the use of those products.
The other option being considered by the Board of Health is to initiate a public education program to provide the public with data from federal agencies and research centers indicating a “reasonable anticipation” that chemicals in the polystyrenes are carcinogenic and, when hot, seep into food and beverages and that public pressure on the food industry will eliminate the use of the Styrofoam containers.
Health Director Joseph Rouse said several local communities, including South Hadley and Amherst, have instituted bans of the foam cups and containers. Other major population centers, such as New York City, have instituted a similar ban.
“A growing number of communities are instituting bans, but I don’t think it’s gotten contiguous to Westfield yet,” Rouse said. “Polystyrenes are not biodegradable and take up space in landfills, but that’s not the rationale for health officials seeking a ban. It’s because there is a reasonable anticipation of those materials to be carcinogenic.”
Rouse said that a Health Board decision to ban the use of that material “is not in the immediate future, we’re still reviewing the scientific and medical studies and will present that data to the board.”
Rouse said if a ban in approved by the Health Board it would have a phase-in period to allow the food providers in the city to transition from the polystyrene containers to other materials. Several food chains in the city have already eliminated the use of the polystyrene containers.
“Many of the national food chains are poised and ready to make that conversion before this (polystyrene ban) becomes a uniform restriction,” Rouse said. “Some of the synthetic compounds in the polystyrene containers leak out into hot food and drinks.”
“People should not put polystyrene containers into a microwave oven to reheat food,” Rouse said.
The federal Environmental Agency and the National Toxicology Program have issued warnings about the potential hazard of the materials.
Rouse said that the department is working on a draft regulation to bring to the city’s Law Department for review and then to the Board of Health for its consideration, with adoption of a new policy in 2016.
