Ellington

Styrofoam food containers will soon be banned due to a Seattle City Council bill that will require all food service businesses to stop using the containers by January 2009.

The ordinance will require businesses to switch to either recyclable or compostable containers and silverware by July 2010. The bill is part of a city effort to discourage production of non-recyclable plastic. The staggered deadlines are the city’s effort to give restaurants sufficient time to adapt.

Take-out orders account for up to 50 percent of sales for some restaurants on the Ave, and some business owners are worried by the changes required by the ban. Most are okay with the law’s limitations but do not know what kind of containers will be allowed or where to buy them.

The city sent 3,000 letters to business owners April to inform restaurant owners of the upcoming ban, wrote Rob Gala, legislative assistant to the City Council president, in an e-mail. None of the interviewed restaurant employees, however, said they had received the letter.

Seattle Public Utilities’ (SPU) business area manager, Dick Lilly, wrote in an e-mail that translated explanations of the ban are about two months away, and the city has asked the Washington Restaurant Association to help businesses secure lower prices on alternative containers.

Shelley Cires, co-owner of Sureshot Espresso on the Ave near Northeast 45th Street, is skeptical that the city will be able to help small businesses like hers.

“They’ll set it up for someone who will buy 30 cases [of cups] at a time,” she said. “We can’t do that.”

Switching to alternative cups may force the café to raise prices — something it hasn’t done in years.

Manager C.K. Lee of Best of Bento near Northeast 42nd Street and the Ave said the city should think about small businesses. Lee estimated he would have to increase to-go prices by 50 cents to cover the cost of new containers.

Claire Vandenburg, a UW senior with a Styrofoam container of Thaiger Room takeout in hand, said she had no opinion on the environmental benefits of the ban. She does, however, care about the prices.

“It’s gonna make the prices even more expensive,” Vandenburg said. “That kind of sucks.”

UW Housing and Food Services (HFS) switched to compostable and recyclable containers last year, a change which saved the department money, although it was difficult to find approved compostable service-ware that would meet customer preference, HFS Project Manager Michael Meyering wrote in an e-mail.

The city has used HFS as an example of a successful green transition; HFS compostable products were displayed at Mayor Nickels’ April 2 press conference on the Styrofoam ban.

In addition to potentially causing businesses to raise prices, the new laws could cause businesses found to be using Styrofoam during SPU inspections to receive fines of up to $250.

About 25 percent of Thai Tom’s sales are take out. The owner of the Ave restaurant is concerned about the quality of the compostable containers, and head chef Jackis Kitsfondhi said the new containers could bend or leak due to heat from food right off the wok, which is why the restaurant has used Styrofoam since it opened 16 years ago.

In the end, food-service restrictions impact small businesses the most, Cires said.

“That’s what these things do to small business,” she said. “They’re good for the environment, but they get us in the pocket.”

Though most businesses seemed pessimistic about the effects of the ban, Lilly said that SPU is working to address potential issues.