The San Luis Obispo County Integrated Waste Management Authority finalized its polystyrene ban on Wednesday. The ordinance prohibits food and beverage providers in the county from providing, using or distributing polystyrene containers. It also prohibits the items from being sold at certain events and removes exemptions for egg cartons and meat trays.
The ordinance is supposed to encourage businesses to turn to more reusable and biodegradable products. “Reducing anything that doesn’t have an ability to be recycled in the first place is just better overall,” said Aaron Gomez, Integrated Waste Management Authority Board President. “On top of that, you also have the issue of, we are paying for those cleanups, so any time that we are getting this out of the environment, we the public are either paying for it in tax dollars or we are paying for it in volunteer time and it literally costs our state alone millions of dollars a year.”