San Diego’s efforts to become a “zero waste” city will include allowing residents living in single-family homes to start recycling polystyrene food and beverage containers on July 1.

Many California cities have banned the use of polystyrene — more commonly called Styrofoam, the brand name used by a leading manufacturer — and the California Legislature considered a statewide ban in 2011.

But San Diego has decided to take a more business-friendly approach by allowing the containers, which restaurants and other businesses consider highly cost-effective, to be placed in blue recycling bins.

The City Council unanimously approved the change on Tuesday.


It will cost San Diego $90,000 per year, which will come out of the $3.3 million in annual revenue the city receives from residents recycling other items like glass bottles, aluminum cans and paper products.

Bans in other places, such as San Francisco, have been passed because polystyrene doesn’t biodegrade like organic material, instead turning into steadily smaller pieces that birds and other sea life consume.

Businesses, primarily restaurants and food trucks, complain that bans cost them thousands of dollars because paper products are more expensive and less effective.

Chris Duggan of the California Restaurant Association praised the city’s decision last month, promising that local restaurants would help educate residents that they can start recycling the containers.


“I always say it keeps our hot foods hot and our cold foods cold,” Duggan said of polystyrene.

The San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce also praised the city.

“We believe recycling expanded polystyrene food containers is a sensible alternative to an outright ban,” said Sophie Barnhorst, a chamber policy coordinator.

Opponents of bans say the cost of using more environmentally friendly materials would eventually get passed on to consumers.


San Diego last fall was unsure whether it would begin allowing residents to recycle polystyrene food containers when initial cost estimates from the city’s recycling contractor came in at nearly $300,000.

But the cost has been reduced to $90,000 by a plan to send the polystyrene to a secondary processor that will further recycle and sort it.

In 2014, the city began allowing single-family residents to recycle polystyrene packaging material used in shipping, but not food containers.

Trash and recycling from businesses, condominiums and apartments in San Diego is handled by private contractors that may not allow recycling of polystyrene food containers.


The change for residential customers will help the city meet the goals of its zero waste plan, adopted in 2015. The plan calls for a 75 percent diversion rate by 2020, a 90 percent diversion rate by 2035 and 100 percent diversion by 2040.

david.garrick@sduniontribune.com (619) 269-8906 Twitter:@UTDavidGarrick