What Is Wrong With Styrofoam?

The takeaway food business is really popular, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated Styrofoam ban.

However, in order to stay relevant, it’s important for takeaway businesses to keep up with the times and switch from Styrofoam to alternatives such as paper cups and compostable material.

Breaking Up With Styrofoam

Many alternative options are available, but which will be best for the businesses and people?

With so many opinions about what types of food products should be sold in paper or plastic, deciphering which one is better can get confusing.

Although many people appreciate the convenience of food being sold in Styrofoam, it’s important to remember that Styrofoam isn’t biodegradable; therefore, it takes a long time to degrade. Not only is Styrofoam not entirely biodegradable, but it also has negative environmental impacts on animals, mainly marine life.

Many people and companies have tried to make alternatives to Styrofoam; in recent years, more alternatives have come on the market for hot food containers.

Why Is Styrofoam So Bad?

Styrofoam is produced using petroleum. The Styrofoam production process uses chemicals that are potentially harmful to humans, it requires a lot of natural resources, and even the disposal of Styrofoam has adverse effects on the environment because Styrofoam takes way too long to degrade.

In addition to these problems, styrene can leach from Styrofoam into food products. Leaching styrene can cause cancer. The styrenes in Styrofoam are often used as an additive in many different types of plastics and can interfere with developing embryos and fetuses.

What Are The Alternative Options For Food Containers?

Moving away from Styrofoam means making a change to the way that our food is packaged, handled, and consumed.

Paper

Instead of using Styrofoam, we can use paper cups and other types of containers. Paper cups have been around since the 1800s, but they have not been commonly used until recently when they were more easily accessible. The paper cup market has grown because consumers have come to appreciate the environmental implications of using paper cups over Styrofoam.

The use of paper cups reduces waste by eliminating plastic and Styrofoam packaging. Sometimes recycled materials are used to create the cups themselves, which can make them more environmentally friendly than Styrofoam.

When they are thrown away, they may end up in landfills, but paper cups degrade and can be easily recycled. Paper cups are still disposable and some poorer quality cups can also leach chemicals into food products.

Mushroom Fibre

Another material that has been tested to use as takeaway food packaging is actually made from mushroom fibre.

It’s completely biodegradable, but it hasn’t been tested to see how long it will take to break down in the natural environment. While this alternative material is environmentally friendly, it also lacks many of the advantages that Styrofoam has.

Bran Fibre

Bran wheat fibre has been used to make different types of containers, including cake boxes, egg trays, and coffee cups.  This material is a lot more expensive than Styrofoam, but makes for a strong and credible alternative to Styrofoam packaging.