If you order in Delaware Takeout, your order may look a little different and much more environmentally friendly.
The state has banned all the food facilities of packaging that contains food and drinks in containers with plastic foam, which are often referred to as styrofoam. The ban, reported Coastal Point, was adopted in 2023 and came into force on Tuesday and applies to restaurants, caterers, grocery stores and sales machines.
Pre -packed foods from a factory are freed from the law, but companies have been encouraged not to sell food that are delivered to plastic foam.
“Over time, this cheap material collapses into ever smaller pieces that can be picked up by wild animals and handed over to the food chain or water supply,” said Senator Trey Paradeee, the sponsor of the legislation. “That is why we have to take measures to reduce the amount of plastics that end up on our landfolter, on our streets and on our waterways.”
Plastic foam is easy to produce cheap and has strong insulating properties that have had a popular choice for storing food for decades. But it also causes enormous damage to our planet, which causes the ban on Delaware.
A usage plastics such as plastic foam are responsible every year for almost 500 million tons of carbon pollution. Although scientists work on methods to recycle plastic foam, it mainly ends as garbage or landfill.
Researchers estimate that up to 5 billion pounds of plastic foam penetrate our oceans and landfills every year. And because it is not biodegradable, it instead breaks in microplasty – tiny, sometimes non -noticeable particles that are now all over the world, including human brains.
Delaware accompanies a variety of other states to ban plastic-foam food containers, including Washington, Oregon, California and Virginia. Some others, such as Alaska and Georgia, take into account similar bans.
But no matter where you live, you can take steps to remove plastic foam – and other plastic types – from your life. For example, if you have out-out dishes, you can bring your own to-go container with more sustainable materials that take over the garbage from the trash.
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