On one of his rare days off last summer, Scott Kirmil, owner of six Rhode Island eateries, with plans for a seventh, was sitting at a beachside bar in Newport and watching hundreds of people stroll around with plastic bags, Styrofoam food containers, sipping drinks from plastic straws.
The ocean views were occasionally disturbed by flashes of white litter windblown like tumbleweeds.
“And there were straws literally lapping on the shore,” he said. “I thought to myself, this is actually the worst-case scenario. Products going directly from the consumer right into the ocean.”
After four years of starts and failures, Rhode Island will join Maine, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, Colorado, Washington and the District of Columbia in banning foam food service containers. The law, passed in June 2023, won’t take effect until Jan. 1, 2025.
The law prohibits food service establishments from “processing, preparing, selling or providing food or beverages in disposable food containers made in whole or in part of polystyrene foam, or from providing beverage stirrers made from plastic,” with each violation subject to a $100 fine.
Kirmil, who opened Diegos Newport LLC in 2009 and has gone on to open other California-inspired Mexican restaurants under the Diego’s name in Rhode Island, has no issue with the ban.
He’s familiar with the sight of Newport trash bins overflowing with food containers and stopped using Styrofoam containers years ago. He didn’t wish to contribute to the nonbiodegradable pollution.
“Being part of that doesn’t make you feel good as a company,” he said.
And while some of the biodegradable containers cost more, “it’s nothing insane,” said Kirmil, though he has sympathy for smaller independent delis and convenience stores that aren’t benefiting from large summer crowds sipping $10 margaritas.
“Paying an extra 6 cents per bag can be a lot for a bodega doing nothing but takeout,” he said. “But for us, it’s not as simple as whether there is an additional cost. It wasn’t a hard choice to spend more on paper straws, biodegradable to-go containers or recycled tin rather than Styrofoam. It’s partly public perception but also doing things that are better for the environment.”
The state’s Central Landfill in Johnston is filling up and will reach capacity by 2040 at current rates of disposal, according to the R.I. Resource Recovery Corp. Though there is disagreement over the solution, environmental advocates have argued for years that polystyrene foam is contributing to the problem.
Bill sponsor Rep. David A. Bennett, D-Warwick, and General Assembly allies have incrementally addressed food product-born pollution through legislation and have faced stark opposition from industry and accusations of being anti-business.
According to the American Chemistry Association, which lobbied against the bill, the ban will actually increase landfill waste when more businesses shift to plastics, citing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s analysis that plastic products made up 12% of waste in 2018. Another study out of Maryland purported that for every $1 spent on expanded polystyrene food service products, replacement alternatives cost $1.85.
Among the compromises to get the bill to the pen of Gov. Daniel J. McKee was delaying the implementation of the ban until 2025, and restricting it to restaurants and similar food service establishments while including a carve out for agricultural fairs, farmers markets, hospitals, nursing homes and charitable organizations that provide free meals.
The ban also exempts prepackaged food items that a restaurant purchases wholesale and foam coolers or ice chests used for processing and shipping.
“For the restaurant owner, it was so they had time to deplete their stock,” Bennett said. “We don’t want to cost them money. We want them to be able to transition into alternative products.”
Styrofoam may be cheaper, but it comes with its own additional costs. For example, it breaks down into “beads” that can be harmful to wildlife, says Bennett, who recalls fishing recently off Block Island and watching fish break water to snag what they thought was food but was really pieces of Styrofoam from a discarded cooler.
“It’s a bad product,” he said. “We are not trying to hurt businesses. We are just trying to clean the environment.”
Not everyone agrees.
Christopher Carlozzi, the Rhode Island director of the National Federation of Independent Business, says the mandated switch from polystyrene containers to higher-priced alternatives will drive up expenses for many of the state’s smaller hospitality businesses already dealing with inflation and labor shortages.
The state’s largest small-business advocacy group, the federation represents hundreds of small- and independent-business owners, the average member having five employees and annual revenues of around $450,000.
“The cost of food and other supplies has risen dramatically … employers are paying more to retain staff and energy prices have increased. So, to demand small-business restaurants purchase higher-priced takeout containers will only further add to operating expenses,” Carlozzi said. “Lawmakers should remember that when they make it more expensive to run a restaurant, those additional costs are often passed along to consumers through higher menu prices.”
In testimony before the R.I. House Environment and Natural Resources Committee, which Bennett chairs, the NFIB cited a California study that found the cost of replacing a 10-cent Styrofoam takeout container with an alternative material would be 24 cents, roughly a 145% increase.
“And if the price of a hamburger or salad or pizza becomes too high, fewer people will dine out, hurting the state’s hospitality industry,” Carlozzi said. “If elected officials want to ensure Rhode Island is affordable for both residents and businesses, they should refrain from piling on any new mandates dictating the types of legal materials businesses may utilize.”
Kirmil acknowledges the higher costs but counters that many of the newer products are more durable and, in the long run, are better for the environment. He is willing to pay a little more.
And as he sees it, so are his customers, who are increasingly more environmentally conscious.
“To us, it was a no-brainer. Do some of the costs get passed on to customers? Sure. But I think that is where the industry is going,” he said. “We are getting people [coming to Rhode Island] from all over the world. And from cities that made these changes a long time ago. So, anything we can do that has even a small impact and that customers appreciate, people notice.”
State lawmakers now have their sights set on the next front in the battle against single-use products, such as tiny liquor bottles known as “nips” or increasing regulations on manufacturers.
“We’ve beaten up on our environment for a long time, and it’s going to turn around and start beating up on us,” Bennett said. “If I had my way, we would ban all of these products today.”
