NYC Mayor Wants To Ban Styrofoam Products. Is His Timing Off?

Whether it is large sodas or strict gun regulation, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is never slow about getting ahead of legislation that he thinks is best for his city. He is now looking to ban plastic-foam food packaging, something environmentalists have been calling on for years.

But is now the right time to make things any more difficult for businesses? 

According to The New York Times, the ban will include takeout boxes, cups and trays and that will force restaurants to restock. Public schools also would have to remove plastic-foam trays from their cafeterias. The move could reportedly save a waste stream of about 20,000 tons of plastic foam at $20 per ton in recycling costs.

But some small business owners are dreading what they call an “unfair burden” on small businesses, the New York Times reports. It is also likely to impact larger manufacturers too, such as Dow Chemicals. New York City is not the first city to consider such a ban. Others such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, have done it, but is now the right time to make it more difficult for businesses to recover from an already sluggish economy.

Do you think the government, local and otherwise, would better serve the people by slowing down on some of the regulations until the economy is a little more robust?