Who is Farhan Lalji?

I got a couple of slices of toast this morning from our café. I also had sushi for lunch down the road. The food was great, the packaging sucked.

I hate polystyrene packaging. Hate it. I get that it’s cheap and that for packaging cheap is good. But the fact that it takes forever to decompose (if it ever does) and that the environmental concerns around it are vast, to me means that it’s just not a viable product in the earth’s long run. Not only that but the alternatives are just nicer, a paper plate or paper container is not only classier but food, for some unknown to me reason, just tastes better.

So why do places, like Yoshino at the Japan centre, continue to serve there goods in polystyrene? If McDonalds can eliminate its polystyrene containers, why can’t others?

Obviously it’s about the bottom line and maximizing the bottom line. But when commerce acts in a way that’s against the greater good government needs to step in. Some have, some cities in the US have had bans on Polystyrene for nearly 20 years, why has the rest of the world taken so long to catch up?

Personally, I would love to see the UN step in, or heck even the EU or any other multilateral group, call for a ban on Polystyrene. Anyone know someone I can email about this?

UPDATE : Thanks to Natasja, I managed to find a ban polystyrene petition on the PM’s site. Please join me at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/banpolystyrene/

And I’ve created a facebook group calling for the ban, please join!