An environmentally conscious retired Culver City business owner today criticized the City Council for making “the easy call” instead of “the right call” regarding an upcoming near certain ban on Styrofoam food containers.
“Where are their guts?” asked the entrepreneur who – not surprisingly — requested anonymity.
“Why are they so hot about pursuing a food container ban? This would affect, maybe, 15 to 20 businesses.
“The real issue for Culver City should be recycling. If anyone on the City Council had courage, that is what we would be talking about.”
Nearby, the businessman’s environmentally sympathetic wife spoke up. “The same kind of misguided thinking was in the ascendancy 35 years ago, at the time we got married,” she said.
“Here are environmentalists today wanting to ban the single-use plastic bag.
“In1980, the same people encouraged the use of single-use plastic bags. They feared too many trees would be cut down for grocery bags.”
The businessman drew his chair closer to the table before him.
“The Styrofoam ban definitely will be helpful,” he said. “You see more Styrofoam food containers in the streets than you do the (Styrofoam) wrappings from flat-screen TVs.
“But addressing recycling and landfills is more important, more pressing.
“All of this is rolled up into one big subject. It is about doing the hard work, not mouthing political talking points.”