Welcome to Foam-Free Seattle
Working to ban Styrofoam-type products and other one-use disposable plastics in Seattle.
Foam-Free Seattle and Bring Your Own Bag applaud the city for enacting a ban on polystyrene food containers and a plastic and paper bag fee!

.

News Update! Special Interest Groups Are Challenging Seattle’s Efforts to Shop Green and Cut Waste

The Washington, D.C.-based American Chemistry Council and the Washington Food Industry have launched a big-money campaign to try and repeal the legislation, funded by national chemical advocates.

These industry groups spent $180,625 in the month of August to get the signatures needed to repeal the legislation. Signatures are currently in the process of being validated.

If the signature-seekers secure the required 14,000 valid names, there will be a referendum up for vote in August 2009. This is bad, not only because the Green Fee will not take effect in January as planned, but it also gives industry groups lots of time to influence public opinion with huge, costly misinformation campaigns.

Please stay tuned for more information!


For more information, or to join our email list, please contact us at
info@foamfreeseattle.org

What's the Story?

In case you've been asleep for the last couple of months, Seattle mayor Greg Nickels and City Council President Richard Conlin recently proposed a ban on polystyrene food containers and a 'green fee' that will require groceries and pharmacies to charge 20 cents for each disposable paper or plastic bag they hand out. Check out information on our bag addiction from our friends at Bring Your Own Bag.

Join our Facebook group.

Check out news coverage -
... and tons more media coverage

And, be sure to check out "Sea of Trash" in the New York Times.

Here is the current list of groups that are helping:

BYOB (Bring Your Own Bag) • Foam-Free Seattle • People for Puget Sound • Sierra Club • Surfrider Foundation • WA Toxics Coalition • Earth Ministry • Seattle Audubon • Seattle Rainforest Action Group • Phinney Eco-Village • Phinney-Greenwood Climate Action Now • Sustainable Ballard • Sustainable Crown Hill • Sustainable West Seattle • BALLE Seattle • WASHPIRG • King County Conservation Voters • Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility

Thanks, everyone!


Links to more information

Here is the Seattle Public Utilities info. page.

This explains how the North Pacific Gyre was discovered.

Here is more info about the work being done to explore the effects of plastic on sea life in the North Pacific Gyre.

BBC's reporting on plastics

A list of plastic bag regulations around the world.

Comprehensive list of writings on plastics in our lakes and seas.

Links to more information on polystyrene, including alternatives

List of other community polystyrene ban ordinances

Plastic debris from rivers to sea

WHAT IS POLYSTYRENE?

"Polystyrene foam, a plastics product, is designed for a useful life of minutes or hours but continues to exist in our environment for hundreds or thousands of years...Biodegradable food service ware can be an affordable, safe, ecologically sound alternative to polystyrene foam and other disposable food service ware." – Jean Quan, Oakland City Council member

WHY DO WE SUPPORT A BAN ON POLYSTYRENE?

1. Litter - Much of the litter that accumulates along roadways, in gutters and in our waterways includes broken up polystyrene cups, clamshells and other products. Polystyrene does not biodegrade.

2. Environmental - Plastics, including tiny broken up bits of polystyrene, forms a thick soup of floating material in part of the Pacific Ocean. Limited studies show plastics elsewhere in the system.

3. Recycling - Can't recycle polystyrene in Washington!
Copyright . Foam-Free Seattle. All rights reserved.
Web Hosting Companies