With the addition of EPS bans in California and Oregon, the entire West Coast now has some level of restriction on the material. | Kittiwat Chaitoep/Shutterstock
As of the first of the year, restrictions on EPS foodware items in California and Oregon are officially in effect.
In California, the ban is rooted in the state’s extended producer responsibility law, SB 54. It requires foam polystyrene food serviceware, such as cups, trays and takeout containers, to demonstrate a recycling rate of no less than 25% by Jan. 1, or the sale of such items is prohibited.
Those requirements ramp up to at least 30% in 2028; 50% in 2030 and 65% in 2032. A direct recycling rate for food service related EPS wasn’t available from the state, and the onus was on the industry to prove the 25% recycling rate, which it did not appear to do. For those reasons, the requirement was described as a de facto ban in 2022 by SB 54’s author, State Sen. Ben Allen, D-El Segundo.
“At the end of the day we got to a place where we put in place an aggressive interim standard for expanded polystyrene,” he said at the time. “It will be very hard for them to meet it with how low the rate currently is, but the folks on the business side wanted to give them a fighting chance.”
Similarly, Oregon’s SB 543 went into effect on Jan. 1 and bans the sale of plastic foam foodware, single-use coolers and packing peanuts.
Several environmental groups have pressed for full EPS bans for years at all levels. The Ocean Conservancy’s Director of Plastics Policy, Anja Brandon, said in a statement that California and Oregon’s bans “will make a huge impact in protecting the ocean, environment and our communities from this widespread form of plastic pollution,” as the entire West Coast now has some level of EPS ban.
Washington also banned plastic foam foodware, single-use coolers, and packaging peanuts in 2021, and its law went into effect in 2023 and 2024.
The EPS Industry Alliance did not respond to a request for comment.