September 2, 2009
A Sacramento Superior Court judge prevented the state from labeling styrene as a "carcinogen" when used in styrene food packaging, according to the California Progress Report.
The judge ruled in favor of styrene manufactures, who sued to keep state environmental regulators from listing the material as a cancer-causing agent under provisions of Propostion 65, an initiative that regulates and informs consumers about toxic products, according to Greener Package.
According the Alliance of Foam Packaging Recyclers (AFPR), 69 million pounds of expanded polystyrene (EPS) packaging were recycled in 2008. Photo: Amanda Wills, Earth911.com
The Styrene Research and Information Center (SIRC) is addressing concerns about the material after some media reports from the American Chemistry Society's 2009 annual meeting referred to styrene as a "known human carcinogen."
According to Jack Snyder, executive director of the SIRC, "[The] styrene monomer is the building-block chemical from which polystyrene is made. Styrene oligomers are created normally in small quantities during polystyrene manufacturing. In general, they are present in very small amounts in polystyrene plastic. They are not commercial products and their cancer-causing potential has not been evaluated."
Styrene is labeled as plastic #6, and the most common form of plastic #6 is EPS, commercially known as Styrofoam, the trademarked product name from the Dow Chemical Company. Though Styrofoam is often difficult to recycle, other plastic #6 products, such as cups, CD and DVD cases, are more widely accepted.
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