The City Council’s alltime endurance record – ending its meeting at 3:15 a.m. during the Gary Silberger era a decade ago – may be threatened by this evening’s 7 o’clock date in Council Chambers.
With scores from the Council’s ballyhooed community survey on a polystyrene ban standing as the opening centerpiece, the Council is expected – sometime tonight – to vote 5-0 on such a ban on food containers.
“We are going to take a step forward,” Mayor Jim Clarke said this morning. “We not only are considering polystyrene but all of the other things I have listed in a memo. “I anticipate we will be taking votes and giving staff direction on an ordinance.”
Here is the, uh, official way the item is characterized, said in the bulkiest use of language:
Discussion of an Enhanced Proposal from Ballona Creek Renaissance to Ban Single-Use Polystyrene Take-Out Food Containers, Food Ware and Coolers; and Consideration of Related Measures Including Anti-Littering Enforcement, Ballona Creek Litter Removal, Waste Handling and Recycling and Incentivizing the Use of Compostable Alternatives.
Survey results on outlawing single-use polystyrene plastic products were as predictable as the calendar.
Ninety percent said they use some form of polystyrene and 83 percent said support a prohibition – as a means of purifying the environment.
