The use of Styrofoam by restaurants and other vendors may be put to a halt by the year 2016. Over 50 cities and counties in California have already outlawed Polystyrene, commonly known as Styrofoam, but now California plans to be the first to place a state wide ban. This law is way overdue.

California is currently considering a bill to ban grocery stores, restaurants, and other vendors from dispensing food in Styrofoam containers by the year 2016. “No way! Let restaurants do what they want,” responded Freshman Brea Wallace, when asked about the ban. “Taco Tree is the only restaurant I know that uses Styrofoam, it makes them different.” The bill would still allow school districts and jurisdictions to use the product as long as they recycled 60 percent of their foam waste. The California Chamber of Commerce calls the bill a “job killer” and argues that the ban will reduce factory jobs and increase restaurants packaging costs.

In reality there are over Twenty-Five million Styrofoam cups thrown away each year. Styrofoam also takes up 25-30% of the space in our landfills, and has been linked to causing cancer. Although the product breaks up easily, it will take around 500 years for Styrofoam to completely dissolve. Also the process of creating the product puts many workers in danger. Styrene, one of the main building blocks of Styrofoam, causes irritation of the eyes, ears, skin, and upper respiratory tract.

When students were asked their opinion about Styrofoam, most of them simply didn’t care. “I would eat the Styrofoam if they put nacho cheese on it!” Exclaimed Freshman Megan Silva, referring to Taco Tree specifically.

In a Town like Auburn California, with a recycling program in place to remove many different grades of plastic from the garbage and recycle them. The reasons to use Styrofoam packaging is quickly depleting, but restaurants may no longer be given a choice.