DANVERS, MA — A proposal to ban Danvers restaurants from using styrofoam “to-go” containers gained support on Tuesday from the Select Board, which voted unanimously to charge Town Manager Steve Bartha with crafting a town bylaw to that effect for presentation at a future town meeting.
The scope of the initial proposal would include the use of styrofoam in delivery containers for food prepared on-site at restaurants and would not include pre-packaged food transported to Danvers stores or other packing materials sold in stores.
“I am fully support of banning the styrofoam,” Select Board member Daniel Bennett said. “I did mention in a previous meeting that I signed a letter from the environmental group urging the governor to ban styrofoam (statewide). I was very supportive of the ban on plastic bags (the town enacted in 2018).
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“A good starting point is a bylaw to ban styrofoam for restaurants and salad bars in to-go packages. A little more difficult to ban styrofoam being delivered by a big meat-packing company. That’s something we will have to work on in the future. But at the very least we can ban styrofoam to go. Chinese food restaurants figured that out years ago with their boxes.”
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Presenters of the proposed ban said a survey of Danvers restaurants indicated that most — even those that currently still use styrofoam — would be receptive to a ban.
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“A lot of them are willing to make the change,” Bennett. “So I don’t think we’ll be stepping on anybody’s toes. It’s prudent for this Board to support a warrant article banning styrofoam to go from restaurants and salad bars.”
Proponents said the ban could be modeled off similar bans that were recently enacted in neighboring Salem and Marblehead. The Salem ban included an extended lead-in time so that businesses could use up their remaining inventory of styrofoam and plan for alternatives.
Swampscott also recently passed a styrofoam ban that included a more nuanced approach to also ban single-use plastic food containers.
Bartha said his office could produce language for a warrant article calling for the ban but it was not immediately clear if that would be done in time for the annual town meeting this spring.
(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)
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