Dive Summary:

• More than 1,000 restaurants in New York City have written to members of City Council asking them to resist passing a proposed ban on polystyrene take-out containers, requesting foam recycling instead of an outright ban.
• If the bill goes through, foam food service containers will become a illegal beginning July 1, 2015.
• The Restaurant Action Alliance of New York City stated that 18,000 restaurants would have to spend nearly double the amount for an alternative container, resulting in shrinking profit margins.

From the article:

It takes more energy and more emissions are created from manufacturing and using the alternatives to polystyrene foam foodservice, Restaurant Action Alliance NYC says.

In April, New York City put two initiatives into effect to improve waste and recycling efforts. The first is an expansion of its recycling program to include the recycling of all rigid plastics...

The second effort, the Food Waste Challenge, is aimed at reducing the amount of waste sent to landfills. The initiative is expected to help meet NYC’s goal of diverting 75 percent of solid waste from landfills by 2030.