The office of New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio announced Thursday it will ban the use of plastic foam cups or containers.
The ban drew an immediate reaction from Brad Braddon, whose father George founded Commodore Plastics 25 years ago. "The Federal government, the agency's in charge of food safety, say it's safe. So, you've got these people who aren't in charge of it, saying that it's not."
Braddon says these bans started on the west coast and threaten their company and its 12-hundred jobs. "There's no reason that I can see to ban packaging made from polystyrene foam. To me, it's completely illogical and I'm dumbfounded that it's gotten such traction. It's unbelievable to me."
When it comes to us, at Commodore, we only do polystyrene foam packaging. That's it. And so, this one hits us a lot harder than it might hit our competitors.
Braddon testified last summer at hearings in New York City on the ban. "Now you start getting New York City and now, it sounds credible, like 'hey, if New York City banned the stuff then it must be bad.' But no, it's not. You know, it's unbelievable that it's Democrats against Republicans."
In his opinion, Democrats want the bans, while Republicans point to manufacturing jobs and oppose it.
"They come up with these environmental reasons like, 'it's filling the landfill.' It isn't filling the landfill. It's a tiny proportion of the landfill. Then, they say it's not recyclable, but there's more foam cups being recycled than paper."
Brandon labels the ban political, and based more on someone's personal preference rather than science. "I think it's just politics. That's my opinion. It's based on personal preference. It's based on telling the voters something that they want to hear."
The New York City ban begins July first, but no fines will be levied until 2016. The ban also targets those plastic foam packing peanuts, but they can still be used in packages shipped into New York City.