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Guess What Bloomberg Might Ban Next…

Feb. 7, 2013 11:00pm Jason Howerton

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg Considering Ban on Styrafoam Cups

NEW YORK, NY – FEBRUARY 06: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Credit: Getty Images

NEW YORK (TheBlaze/AP) — Could plastic foam containers get 86′d from the menu of takeout food options in the nation’s biggest city?

A sanitation official said Wednesday the idea is actually under discussion.

Polystyrene foam, sometimes sold under the brand name Styrofoam, has long been popular among restaurateurs for lightweight, heat-retaining containers, but environmentalists complain it takes years to break down in trash. Some communities around the country have barred eateries from using to-go containers made of it.

As New York City officials prepare a report on how to double the city’s residential recycling rate, the foam is “one of the things that you have to look at,” Department of Sanitation Deputy Commissioner Ron Gonen said by phone Wednesday.

“It may or may not be a component of the overall plan,” due in a few weeks, said Gonen, who oversees recycling and environmental sustainability initiatives.

shutterstock.com

Mayor Michael Bloomberg last year set a goal of recycling 30 percent of the city’s household trash by 2017, up from about 15 percent now. City Hall is “always willing to take a look at new ways to reduce waste that can’t be recycled or reused,” spokesman John McCarthy said Wednesday.

It costs the city an average of $86 per ton to landfill some 2 million tons of garbage a year; by contrast, the city nets a payment of at least $10 a ton for recycling paper and about $14 a ton for recycling glass and plastic, Gonen said.

“The environmental benefits of recycling are obvious,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is make clear to everyone why it’s important from an economic perspective.”

His agency is looking at a range of ideas for boosting recycling and trimming trash. One notion could be expanding test programs for separating and collecting organic waste, for instance.

A similar proposal has stalled in New York’s City Council in recent years, and restaurateurs aren’t eager to see it take on new life.

“We shouldn’t start banning products until we have done a more full analysis of the costs associated, not only with government but for small businesses,” New York State Restaurant Association spokesman Andrew Moesel said Wednesday. “Now is not the time to continue to put more regulations and cost burdens on an industry that is already struggling to make a profit.”

Bloomberg is a fan of banning things. He recently banned big gulps, semi-automatic rifles, magazines with more than seven rounds and now Styrofoam cups are apparently on the chopping block.

Featured image via AP

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Comments (213)

nosharia
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 9:52am
Does Bloomberg qualify to own a firearm?

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walnutportconservative
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 9:48am
Thanks to Al Gore I now like to collect these cups and throw them into my COAL Stove for heat. Nothing qite has the instant BTUs that these cups have. Keeping warm in coal country.

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1096Crusader
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 9:47am
When the city “nets” $ from recycling, WHO pays them? Magic money, right? Looks like Nanny Bloomberg has a sugar daddy in the Federal govt. WHO pays the Fed gov? Me and you! So, coming full circle, you and I will be paying NYC to recycle, all for the mysterious “cause” of “sustainability”. WHO loves “sustainability”? The United Nations, most expressly under Agenda 21. This is such a cute little game of shuffling wealth and concentrating while making Green-minded lemmings feel good about themselves for “saving the Earth”.

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toledofan
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 9:42am
It’s just amazing the level of stupidy in New York and what’s so hard to believe is that the people don’t seem to care. I guess it’s a national trend, for some reason we’ve allowed oourselves to become obvilious to these kinds of ourtrageous demands by the politicans. It’s like we’re watching a real time movie of America Gone Mad. You just have to wonder how it will end.

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Leader1776
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 9:40am
I’m telling you Clownberg is the tin-pot dictator in Woody Allen’s movie “Bananas”. Rent it. Next (as in the movie) Clownberg will be shouting in a speech: ‘…… and from now on EVERYONE will wear their underwear on the outside on Tuesdays’.

Gun control? Seriously, I wouldn’t allow this moron to own any gun.

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mbck1491
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 9:38am
The article stated, environmentalists complain the Styrofoam takes years to break down in trash. I contend that it will take Bloomberg even longer to break down in the trash.

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H-Rock 75
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 9:38am
It has trouble breaking down in landfills? Then burn the styrofoam. Growing up in the rural Midwest on a farm with no trash service I learned that when burning trash styrofoam made better kindling than newspapers or even lighter fluid. Oh wait I forgot we can’t burn trash…..

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iamnotu
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 9:35am
Comon! What in hell kind of stories do you keep putting on this site? Glenn, your views of what are news worthy are beginning to make me question the validity of anything you talk about.
Especially if it has to do with this traitorous Jew.

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ColoradoMaverick
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 9:34am
Bloomberg ought to ban stupidity, then he and the rest of his nanny state liberal morons can boot themselves out of NYC.

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shogun459
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 9:28am
Why do Socialists always try to micromanage the lives of everyone around them?
Is it because they THINK they are so much smarter than the rest of us?
Just ask them, they are so self righteous and arrogant they WILL come right out and tell you how much smarter they are.

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yazoo
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 9:22am
He sould consader banning newspapers from NYC. All that paper, all those trees, all that waste.

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Depressed_American
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 9:15am
I have no sympathy for anyone living in New York City. THEY keep re-electing this fool, AND the fools who support his Nanny-State Decrees; NEW YORKERS, YOU GOT THE GOVERNMENT YOU VOTED FOR/WANTED……..

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RIGS
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 8:59am
Just another BLOVIATING “PENIS HEAD”………………………..

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RIGS
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 8:58am
Just another bloviating “********”……………………….

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NotBigBooteeitsBigButtay
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 8:54am
I’m willing to allow temporary visas for New Yorkers to visit my state, but I don’t what them voting here. Not without a background check and and a psychological evaluation – kind of like if they wanted to buy a gun.

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RamonPreston
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 8:44am
Start serving Bloomberg his hot coffee in a paper cup. Drink fast, Mayor.

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loveoursoldiers
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 8:44am
and Chris Rock would say

Nanny Bloomberg is your daddy.. I mean your mommy.. .. he and his wife/ girlfriend/ mistress ( not sure if he has any of the above ) are your parents.. so do what they tell you.

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NotBigBooteeitsBigButtay
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 8:42am
New York deserves what it votes for.

This man is a lock for another term.

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loveoursoldiers
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 8:37am
Who the eff does he think he is.. Barack Obama?

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dave88
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 8:37am
I think there needs to be a ban on Bloomberg.

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jakartaman
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 8:35am
Bloomberg and New York voters are a match made in Diiseneyland.
They deserve each other – and please keep him there.

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Warphead
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 8:26am
Here is a thought. Bloomberg is mayor of the city right? So by being mayor he has has decided that he possess the authority to ban things he deems as detrimental to his city and residents. Well, maybe someone should point out the fact that his city is not doing well despite the mayor and his super power. Taxes are too high, it’s economy is a wreck, crime rate is too high, it’s citizens are leaving and the whole city is afflicted with innumerable other problems. Bloomberg, being the mayor with the power to ban should be able to see that with all the problems his city endures, all he and his banning powers have been able to accomplish is to ban a large soft drink and then maybe a hamburger container. So with that established maybe he could be made to realize that he himself is not good for the city and act in the cities best interest by, banning himself. Just a thought.

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BlackCrow
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 8:25am
Those people elected that DICTATOR! They got what they deserve.

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- Warphead
  Posted on February 8, 2013 at 8:45am
  Logic would dictate that a population would elect a smart leader as they need someone intelligent to insure a prosperous city’s future and run the day to day operation of that city. But it seems there is a problem. It appears that they didn’t elect a smart leader or they did but only in comparison to their intellectual standing. No, wait a minute. I am all wrong on this or have it mixed up somewhere.Ah yes! What was I thinking? I completely forgot the one true law of the universe. That law states that when dealing with politics, logic does not apply. As once famously quoted “An illogical house cannot stand on a single pillar of logic. Fore an illogical house cannot stand.” Silly me.
  
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Southernsoul
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 8:21am
I hate it when they give you answer so soon in the story. I was going to guess, Idiot Politicians.

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phineas
Posted on February 8, 2013 at 8:19am
give a liberal an inch…

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