Nine months after environmental activists from Ballona Creek Renaissance brought their case to the City Council, the law has been changed.

In the molasses-paced world of governmental legislation, that is a huge accomplishment by the metrics of content and the calendar.

Activists successfully sought to force Culver City eateries to stop using members of the plastic polystyrene family because of the way torn pieces mar the beauty and clarity of the landscape.

Environmentalists have complained for years that piecemeal polystyrene, cast away by careless visitors, litters the Creek path, the Creek, the ocean and beaches.

Polystyrene, characterized as a torturer of the environment, eventually will be taking a much lower profile in Culver City eateries.

Allowing for a period of adaptation for more creative stocking by restaurants, the ban on polystyrene will become more or less final in November, a half-year away.