Dining Halls To Phase Out Styrofoam

Due to national environmental concerns, Harvard University will switch to paper cups as soon as it can draw up a reasonable contract with a national paper company, dining hall officials said yesterday.

The university now uses styrofoam cups, which tend to comprise landfills because they do not decay naturally. "The switch is a move toward the national direction of cooperation in the interest of ecology," says Benjamin Walcott, assistant director of dining hall services. The university, which uses more than 100,000 cups per week,will have to pay twice as much for the new cups,he said.

"I'm a catalyst in this. We will go throughwith this," said Frank Weissbecker, director ofdining hall services.

"It's a real problem for the landfills," saidRobert Malone, treasurer of the Bay Colony PaperCorporation. "In all communities the cost of trashdisposal has gone up due to problems of space,"agreed Walcott.

The move follows a national effort to stop theuse of foam products because they do not decomposeand because some foams contain chloroflourocarbons(CFC), a group of chemicals which erode the ozonelayer. Most foam cups do not contain CFC, but thechemicals are still used to produce industrialfoams. CFC is released during the manufacturingprocess and when foams are burned in municipalincinerators.

California, Rhode Island, Maine and Vermonthave passed, or are in the process of passing,legislation limiting the use of foam products inpublic places.

"Many fast food chains have switched, or arecontemplating a switch to paper," said Malone. Andat the local level, he said, "Tufts, hasconsidered foam but has stayed with paper. MIT hascut back on foam use."

While some maintain that foams pose a seriousthreat, others are more optimistic.

According to Lane Ehrsam, a media spokespersonfor the McDonald's Corporation, foams are lessdangerous than many believe.

"Foam has been singled out as the culprit, butit isn't. The average life span of a landfill is10 years. If we got rid of all foam products, wewould only extend the life of a landfill by onemonth. The CFC resulting from foam products isonly one-one thousandth of 1 percent of thehazards to the ozone layer."

Whatever the exact effect of foam products,sources on both sides of the question agreed thatthere will be a dramatic shift to paper productsin the future. Even McDonald's has limited its useof foam products and has stopped using CFC toproduce its foam.

"Once one company switches, they all willswitch. I'd love to see us go back to paper," saidMalone. "I wouldn't be surprised if manufacturerssought out alternatives to styrofoam," saidWalcott