Maui gives initial OK to limits on plastic foam containers
DENNIS ODA / SEPT. 2015
Restaurants in Maui County would have to pack food in eco-friendly containers free of plastic foam under a measure that could be approved early next year.
WAILUKU >> Restaurants in Maui County would have to pack food in eco-friendly containers free of plastic foam under a measure that could be approved early next year.
Councilmembers decided at their last meeting in December to move a measure forward that restricts the use and sale of plastic containers.
It also bans the products at county events and facilities.
Some businesses are supportive while others express concerns over the cost and quality of alternative containers.
Businesses can apply for hardship exemptions.
Maui News reported the council approved an amendment covering food packaged outside the county.
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The change raised questions about potential violations to rules regarding interstate commerce.
Vice Chairman Don Guzman proposed the amendment and said it levels the playing field.
The proposed measure could go into effect by July 2018.
18 responses to “Maui gives initial OK to limits on plastic foam containers”
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Oh boy, back to paper food containers that leak right through. Eventually, they will ban them too. I thought paper from trees is a resource we should protect. In the future, when you go to a carry out restaurant, they will stick a tube down your throat and extrude your meal.
Styrofoam containers was an invention foisted on the world by MacDonalds in the last 40 years. How does it feel to continue to be duped by MacDonalds and the lemmings that bough into their environmentally disastrous product. Even Macdonalds has moved on from styrofoam. Also, the paper used now in products like food containers does NOT come from pristine forests but from tree farms planted for the specific purpose of creating paper products. Seems you’re still living in the 1970s.
OMG here we go again with the uninformed mainland transplants initiating voodoo environmental law. My main concern is global warming and its reduction. These folks do not realize that when the paper alternative to plastic are used that there is a net increase in green house gasses. Just ship your plastic to Oahu’s hpower and do not put it in your landfills – but please do not do something that will contribute to more greenhouse gasses.
You do realize that foam containers are an oil based product. The paper used now in products like food containers does NOT come from pristine forests but from tree farms planted for the specific purpose of creating paper products. Your comment, like the other two already on the post, are examples of the uniformed-non-mainland locals who are on a long path to continue destroying the paradise that was bequeathed to you by your ancestors. All you typical locals who think know so much, should start taking responsibility for the destruction that you are a part of. Stop blaming your problems on the boogie man mainlander. This State is turning into an environmental disaster because of people born and raised here, not the transplants.
Wrong. This has nothing to do with pristine deforestation. It has to do with the manufacturing process of paper vs oil based products and all of the chemicals used to produce paper. (Those living near mainland paper plants know exactly what I am referring to). Please google the science sites and educate yourself if you are unwilling to attend college courses on this subject.
Government is dumb and has abandoned common sense for fake feel-good political correctnesss. Plastic styrofoam is more eco-friendly than paper. It uses less resources to manufacture, and is recycled into energy when burned at H-Power on Oahu, and Maui can burn their trash too.
Time to do some research before you pretend to know something about burning trash. Burning plastic trash creates pollutants such as dioxins that are one of the most carcinogenic compounds known. They also get released into the environment and do not break down. Trash to energy is a myth created by the trash industry so that Hawaii feels okay about doing nothing about their trash problem. You’d think that those of you born and raised on a rock in the middle of the pacific ocean would care more about the environment and less about you own need for plastic containers. Astonishing how the “local” mentality is really a “mainland” mentality of 40 years ago. You’re all still buying into the plantation mentality foisted on you 100 years ago.
H-Power does a good job of protecting the environment from that which it burns.
When and if the ban goes into effect, I do hope that the names of places who do not comply or do not have to comply, will be made public so I can spend my money elsewhere. I was not born here but I got here in 1963!
This state is fast moving to becoming like San Francisco where the cost of everything is jacked up by do-gooders who eventually make cost of living for everyone else insurmountable. With Trump’s tariffs possibly going into effect the price of goods will go up. And with one-size-fits-all legislation we shall all live in the state where only the rich can live comfortably. Just visit Maui and you will know what I’m talking about.
And these very same do-gooders drive their SUV’s while speaking of saving the planet.
So true. These hipsters do what makes them feel good, not make any sacrifice that actually makes a measurable difference. They’re more interested in getting in other people’s faces and interfering in their lives.
Here we go again. Rich people on Maui fighting plastic instead of Hawaiian Diaspora. To them, Plastic Lives Matter. Not that of Kanaka Maoli.
Wow, so many angry people who are unable to see how they have been duped by big business. This is one measure to try and make business and consumers take on more costs, rather than making taxpayers (you) pay more after damage to the environment has been done. It’s like all the fools who vote Republican, when all the actual benefits will go to the 1%. Sheep.
Which “1%” are you talking about? The higher costs will hit the 99% of the population in a state that already has the highest living costs in the nation. Sure, there is the “1%“who own a disproportionate share of the nation’s and world’s wealth but then there is also the self-righteous “1%” who want to foist their “noble” ideals which often have no relation to what the other 99% really care about. How is having the 99% face a higher cost of living for the satisfaction of the fanatical 1% who don’t give a rip, any better than having the 99% see their incomes continue to shrink relative to the greedy 1% who don’t give a rip? The 99% lose both times. It would seem both kinds of 1-percenters (the superrich and self-righteous ideologues) really don’t care what the rest of us 99-percenters think. Maybe in many cases they are the same people—which explains a lot.
Waldo, do you even think about what you say? I don’t think the top 1% eat from styrofoam containers. Regular hard working taxpayers do. Whose food prices do you think are going to go up as a result of this ban? Plate lunch folk, or the top 1%?
Of course it is always the uninformed Mainlander transplant’s fault. Isn’t everything? If all the great answers are here in the Islands, then maybe the Mainland, with all it’s faults, could benefit by some shared Aloha spirit.
For the record, Vice Chairman Don Guzman who is proposing this greenhouse gas unfriendly law, is a transplant and NOT from Maui or the State of Hawaii. Not sayin that everything is a transplants fault but it is odd that 7 out of 10 times these un thought through laws seem to be initiated and supported by outside groups or individuals.