Styrofoam: Not as harmless as it looks

Styrofoam: Not as harmless as it looks

By Stevie Emilia

JAKARTA (JP): Next time you have lunch at a fast food
restaurant, pay more attention to how your meal is served. You
might notice something that you overlooked before: the use of
styrofoam packaging in the cup, plate or take-out box.

About two decades ago, styrofoam was hardly seen here. People
used banana leaves or paper to wrap food, or brought their own
food containers, especially when they bought soup at a take-out
food outlet. Along with the popularity of plastic, which is more
practical, cheap and "modern", most restaurants in big cities
abandoned the use of traditional wrapping, especially as it was
increasingly difficult to find banana leaves.

Many restaurants prefer to use styrofoam, because it does not
leak, preserves the meal well and does not conduct heat,
protecting your hands while there is a hot meal inside. All in
all, it offers a mix of strength, portability and hygiene.

Environmentalists here and abroad have long protested the use
of styrofoam -- or foamed polystyrene -- due to its long-term
impact on the environment. They say that polystyrene is not
environmentally friendly since it is not biodegradable, while
some manufacturers used the ozone-depleting substance CFC
(chlorofluorcarbon) in its production.

Others even argued that the chemicals used in styrofoam
production might contaminate food, thus posing a serious threat
to the public's health.

But instead of a reduction in styrofoam packaging, there is a
rising trend toward its use. It can be found in one's home,
office, grocery store, cafe and certainly, fast-food restaurants.

Zumrotin K. Soesilo, executive director of the Indonesian
Consumers Foundation (YLKI) said that the fear of possible
contamination was natural since styrofoam was made from
chemicals, but there was a need to back the claim with research.

One thing for certain, she said, was that styrofoam had a bad
impact on the environment in the long-term since it was not
biodegradable.

Unfortunately, some fast-food restaurants unnecessarily serve
drinks or food in styrofoam cups or plates although the customers
dine inside.

"What's the use of all that? The restaurants can serve their
customers with washable cups, why use styrofoam?" Zumrotin told
The Jakarta Post.

She lashed out at the restaurants' management who never count
the cost of damage to the environment in the future. She
suspected that they only want to save money because using
washable things would force them to hire more people.

"They forget that most customers do not know or have adequate
knowledge about styrofoam. They don't know that styrofoam is not
biodegradable, and they simply throw the used packages anywhere,"
Zumrotin said.

YLKI is not the first organization to notice the trend. A few
years back, a group of activists from the Youth Forum for the
Environment staged a peaceful protest by replacing the styrofoam
being used to serve their food with their own plates and glasses
at a fast-food restaurant.

During their action, the group also distributed pamphlets to
other customers in the restaurant, reminding them that the clean
and white styrofoam was actually dangerous and not biodegradable.

Foamed polystyrene is a processed material of monomer styrene.
Styrene, a petroleum by-product, is the primary raw material from
which polystyrene is made. When the polystyrene is being
developed into styrofoam, other chemicals are added before being
processed at certain temperatures into foam, which are then blown
out using CFC or another blowing agent.

The government last year banned the trade, import and
production of 22 ozone-depleting chemicals. The 22 banned items
can still be traded until Jan. 1, 2005 to allow the sale of
stocks already on the market.

Other countries have banned the use of CFCs as far back as the
1980s, and no longer use the ozone-depleting chemicals in the
manufacture of polystyrene foam packaging. Now, polystyrene foam
products are manufactured primarily using two types of blowing
agents: pentane and carbon dioxide.

Some companies here have put a CFC-Free mark at the bottom of
the products.

McDonald's Indonesia is one of the companies which claims that
it has been using non-CFC styrofoam.

"The use of styrofoam at McDonald's is only 17 percent of
total packaging and it will be reduced further to half that by
year-end," the company's associate director for marketing and
communications, B.S. Dharma, said.

He said the restaurant still used styrofoam since there was no
other alternative to replace it. At the moment, he said,
styrofoam was only being used to serve hot drinks and chicken and
rice meals.

The company, he said, also conducted routine hazard analyses
and critical control points in the production process -- from its
raw material stage until the products were delivered to the
consumers -- to assure product safety from dangerous chemicals
and others.

But soon, it planned to test the use of paper bags to replace
styrofoam in serving its chicken and rice meals at some of its
outlets. Dharma said the company was willing to use new packaging
technology if it proved to be safer for the public's health and
the environment.

Even though many companies claim they use CFC-Free styrofoam,
environmentalists remain skeptical.

"I don't believe that styrofoam here is completely CFC-Free,"
said Emmy Hafild, chairwoman of the Indonesian Forum for
Environment.

She insisted that a paper bag or box used for food packaging
was much safer than styrofoam.

"In my opinion, the use of paper boxes for carrying food in is
safer, especially in terms of protecting the environment," she
told the Post.

"Styrofoam is not degradable and if it was, it would need
special techniques and facilities that require lots of money to
prepare. That's what we don't have," she added.

In developed countries, polystyrene causes less problems as
recycling has become part of a daily routine.

In the United States, polystyrene recycling is no longer a
problem. Used cups or trays are collected from various places,
such as schools, hospitals and cafeterias, before recycling.

In Britain, the pollutant is being turned into a useful
everyday product: plastic pencils developed from polystyrene
plastic cups. Tests have proved that they perform as well as
conventional pencils, and cost 50 percent less.

Syafei Kadarusman of the Green Consumers Institute (Lemkohi)
said efforts to reduce the use of styrofoam should be started by
raising companies' environmental awareness.

"If the manufacturers have environmental awareness, they will
certainly produce environmentally friendly products."