Early this March, the Maryland State Legislature took a step closer to making Maryland the first state in the country to ban polystyrene products, such as styrofoam cups and trays, from being sold in stores and served in restaurants. The bill, which passed with a 34-13 vote in the State Senate, would expand the already existing ban from counties like Montgomery, Prince George, and Anne Arundel to being fully imposed statewide, and is awaiting approval from Governor Larry Hogan.

While thirteen out of fifteen, a majority of the Republican State Senators, voted against the Democrat sponsored bill, Republican Governor Larry Hogan's office has stated that the Governor is, according to CBS Baltimore, “always willing to consider any piece of legislation that reaches his desk.” If signed into law, the bill would take in effect in July 2020 and administer a $250 fine if violated, giving businesses a year to dispose of their foam containers, addressing concerns of opponents that businesses buying foam in bulk would be harmed.  

The styrofoam ban has also seen traction in cities like New York, Santa Monica, and Minneapolis. Washington D.C. has also fully banned the product. Proponents of the bill have cited several benefits, primarily in hopes to respond to environmental concerns. Delegate Brooke Lierman, the Democrat Delegate sponsoring the bill, described the plastic foam material to CNN as “probably the most insidious form of single-use plastics.” Additionally Ashley Van Stone, the executive director of Trash Free Maryland, a nonprofit organization located in Baltimore, spoke to the detriments of styrofoam in an interview with CBS, stating that “The [foam’s] lightweight material easily breaks into smaller pieces, which makes it difficult to clean up. Foam also absorbs toxins faster than other plastics and is mistaken for food by marine life, and the toxins that wildlife consumes makes its way up the food chain into people.” Styrofoam material is not recyclable and therefore, as the Baltimore Sun notes, ends up “littering waterways” and harming animals that’ll mistake the litter for food.

Critics of the bill, however, have rooted their concerns in the effects on retail and small businesses. President of the Maryland Retailers Association, Cailey Locklair Tolle, stated that “Not only will costs go up for restaurants and be passed onto consumers, but because comparable products weigh more and many cannot be recycled, costs will increase due to higher tipping fees (based on weight) at landfills,” ultimately pointing out the cost-effective benefits of styrofoam usage.

The costs would also impact school systems, with the Capital Gazette suggesting that the ban could cost the lunch system in Anne Arundel County approximately 647,000 annually in order to accomodate environmentally preferable alternatives. According to a representative of the Montgomery County Division for Food and Nutrition, MCPS converted from polystyrene trasy to for school lunches at the start of the 2014-15 school year. The cost to the alternative, recyclable paperboard trays, was estimated to be approximately 1,000,000 per year.

 After her third attempt to pass the bill in the Maryland House of Delegates, Lierman cites her success to the “shifting of public opinion” in understanding the threats of plastic. As CNBC notes, a Nielsen survey found that 48 percent of Americans said they would “definitely or probably change their spending habits to reduce their environmental impact.”