Reply #32: Can I add something? Don't by anything that comes packaged in styrofoam [View All]

Something I wrote for a magazine as part of an article on how plastic is entering into our food chain. If anyone wants to read the full article I'll post it in full either here or in the Environment forum.


Beware of Styrofoam cups and containers

According to the EPA and the World Health Organisation, the styrene in Styrofoam is a human carcinogen that can leach into cups and containers. So, if you are going to buy fast food, it’s best to transfer straight away any food that comes in Styrofoam containers into ceramic or glass dishes and double check to see what that ‘instant’ food is surrounded by before you by it.

Styrofoam (actually "polystyrene foam") is one of the most dangerous packaging products made by man and is made from benzene, a known carcinogen, which can be released in microscopic particles when it comes into contact with warm food and drink. Converted to styrene, a plastic soup like substance, it is then injected with gases to build the bubbles needed in a "foam" product. The gases used are often ozone-depleting CFCs or HCFCs - which also destroy ozone, although somewhat more slowly that CFCs. Other widely-used gas substitutes are pentane and butane, both major contributors to urban smog. Polystyrene is totally non biodegradable. Bury a foam coffee cup in your garden tomorrow and 500+ years from now future generations will be able to dig it up, rinse it off and use it. Polystyrene also takes up huge chunks of space in landfill sites, precisely because it is, for its weight, so bulky. Polystyrene is lethal when discarded on land or water. Chunks of plastic foam (especially the foam "peanuts" used in packing) look like food to animals and marine life. Birds often choke on the plastic. Sea turtles die from eating foam plastics because their buoyancy keeps the turtles from diving for their food.

Also, not using styrofoam is(obviously) another way we can reduce our use of fossil oil.

Thanks for posting. This is the sort of proactive discussion about sustainability I love.