FILE PHOTO: A foam cup, center, is discarded in a trash bin in New York Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) 
 
 The city will move to the forefront of a growing environmental trend by banning food establishments from using plastic foam containers starting this summer, Mayor de Blasio's administration said Thursday. 
 
 De Blasio's mayoral ban will fulfill an initiative begun by his predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, who first suggested banning the material in his final State of the City address, in 2013. New York will now be the largest city in the country -- following San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, Oregon -- to prohibit the foam containers, which environmental groups have long decried as a hazard that clogs the nation's landfills. 
 
 "These products cause real environmental harm and have no place in New York City," said de Blasio in a statement announcing the ban. "We have better options, better alternatives, and if more cities across the country follow our lead and institute similar bans, those alternatives will soon become more plentiful and will cost less." 
 
 Administration officials believe that the ban will remove nearly 30,000 tons of expanded polystyrene from the city's streets, waterways and landfills, and it continues de Blasio's push to create a greener New York City. Last year, he announced an ambitious plan to cut its greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050 from its 2005 levels. 
 
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 The ban will take effect July 1. Beginning that day, food establishments — from food carts to Chinese takeout — will not be allowed to use plastic foam cups or containers. Packing peanuts will also not be allowed to be sold within the city, though peanuts can still be placed within packages that are shipped to New York from elsewhere. 
 
 "While much of the waste we produce can be recycled or reused, polystyrene foam is not one of those materials," said Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia. "Removing polystyrene from our waste stream is not only good for a greener, more sustainable New York, but also for the communities who are home to landfills receiving the city's trash." 
 
 Administration officials said the ban will have a grace period, without fines, until January 2016. 
 
 Nonprofits and businesses with less than $500,000 in annual revenue could qualify for an exemption from the plastic foam ban, but they would have to prove that using nonfoam materials would create financial hardship. ||||| The 1 July ban will put an end to 28,000 tonnes of waste a year. But New York’s food cart operators are concerned about finding affordable alternatives 
 
 A New York ban on styrofoam food containers, announced today, raises the question: what will the halal carts do? 
 
 New York City’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, is set to announce a citywide ban on foam containers today, with the ban taking effect on 1 July. The move comes two years after the former mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed banning use of polystyrene cups and containers in the city. 
 
 Styrofoam – or expanded polystyrene for wonks – is relatively inexpensive and popular among fast food establishments, particularly the city’s ubiquitous food carts. They owe their widespread use to their relative inexpensiveness and are great insulators for keeping contents warm. 
 
 But styrofoam has other costs: the city collected over 28,000 tonnes of styrofoam waste in 2014. 
 
 Before the legislation to ban styrofoam was passed, Dart Container Corporation, the largest manufacturer of styrofoam containers, offered to buy the waste and assist with the primary problem of recycling, perceiving the threat to their business. 
 
 “New York City pays $86 a ton to landfill foam. We’re offering to pay $160 to recycle it,” the company’s chief executive told the New York Post. The corporation, worked with the recycling firm Plastic Recycling, Inc to set up recycling facilities for New York City. 
 
 Starting 1 July, establishments are forbidden from using styrofoam cups, containers and other cutlery. But the city will not collect fines until January 2016. The law will allow nonprofits and businesses with less than $500,000 in annual revenue to obtain possible exemptions. 
 
 
 
 The catch? They have to prove that the ban will cause them “undue financial hardship”. 
 
 Shamim, who owns a halal cart at the intersection of East Houston Street and Broadway in the Soho area of Manhattan, says he uses up between 120 and 15o foam containers each day. The containers are sold in packs of 100 that cost $12. 
 
 
 
 Shamim’s cart has done business in the same location for the last eight years, and he says he recently heard about the ban. Grimacing, he says that if he has to use more expensive boxes, he will be forced to charge more. 
 
 
 
 However, if the containers are bad for the environment, he will accept the city’s move. 
 
 
 
 “I will agree with them, but they have to give us the alternative,” he says. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Not so tasty: New York department of sanitation trucks deliver mountains of trash from the city’s curbside recycling program to the Sims Municipal Recycling facility in Sunset Park in Brooklyn. Photograph: Richard Levine/Demotix/Corbis 
 
 The legislation to ban the material was unanimously passed in the city council in December 2013. An amendment gave city officials, particularly the sanitation department, a year to determine an “environmentally effective, economically feasible and safe” way to recycle the waste. 
 
 As the 1 January deadline passed, city officials concluded that polystyrene was not recyclable and that they had not found any established markets where it could be sold, according to a New York Times report. 
 
 
 
 An estimated $97m was spent annually on 2.58bn units of single-use styrofoam products such as clamshell containers, cups and spoons. 
 
 
 
 An independent analysis released by city-based environmental nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council with DSM Environmental Services, a municipal-waste consultancy, could not conclusively prove that recycling styrofoam in the city was financially viable. 
 
 Environment advocates are, naturally, thrilled. Eric Goldstein, the environment director of the NRDC, welcomed the ban. 
 
 
 
 “[It’s] One of the De Blasio administration’s first big environmental actions, and it’s a good one,” he says, calling the move economically justified. 
 
 He says that the styrofoam containers could be replaced by containers made of aluminum, recycled paper or other compostable material. The financial assistance provisions of bans in other cities have almost never been used. “Whatever price difference there are between types of containers are trivial and the costs have been absorbed by consumers,” he says. 
 
 But those who have long opposed the legislation are disappointed. 
 
 
 
 The ban not only impacts smaller businesses in New York City, says Michael Durant. He is the New York state director of the National Federation of Independent Business, a lobbying organization that rallied against the ban, calling it “a direct threat to thousands of jobs in upstate New York”. 
 
 The sanitation department’s decision to not take the recycling route was unreasonable, he says. “It was just posturing. We’re very disappointed.” 
 
 But the establishments that are most affected by the ban are perplexed about finding suitable alternatives. 
 
 Other vendors are more concerned. Alam, another food cart operator in the Soho area, says more expensive alternatives are unviable: after all, the food’s selling-point is its cheapness. He says he has no idea what containers he will use after the ban. “I don’t know,” he says, scooping steaming falafels into a white clamshell styrofoam box. ||||| Advertisement Advertise here 
 
 Deli workers and short-order cooks will have to ditch the cheap foam takeout containers for more environmentally friendly and expensive wares starting this summer, the de Blasio administration announced Thursday. 
 
 The ban on polystyrene foam clam shells, cups and plates, as well as packing peanuts, had food establishment workers resigned to finding containers made from another kind of material that could put a pinch in the bottom line. 
 
 Faisal Ali, an employee at Port Authority Food and Deli on Ninth Avenue, said prices for customers may have to rise if his business switches containers. 
 
 "The cheapest one is the foam. If we go for the plastic and other materials, paper let's say for the coffee cups, it's extremely, very expensive," Ali said. "It will cost you 85% higher than the foam prices. That's a huge gap. It's not 5 cents, it's not 10 cents." 
 
 The ban is a Bloomberg-era initiative to rid city restaurants and delis of polystyrene foam. At the end of his term, the City Council passed a law requiring the Sanitation Department to determine whether polystyrene foam could be recycled in a southern Brooklyn processing facility. The city found that the material cannot be recycled, which triggered the ban, set to go into effect in July with a six-month grace period for fines. Small businesses that make less than $500,000 in revenue a year could get a hardship exemption from the Department of Small Business Services. 
 
 The de Blasio administration estimated that 30,000 tons of polystyrene waste a year goes to landfills, streets and waterways. 
 
 Restaurant industry reps appreciated provisions to get small businesses to make the switch. 
 
 "Those that are still using expanded polystyrene containers will have an added expense, but at least they have some time to identify new packaging that keeps food quality and adjust for cost before the law takes effect," said Andrew Rigie of the New York City Hospitality Association.
– Diners, delis, and food carts in the country's biggest city have six months to find a greener alternative to the Styrofoam cups and takeout containers many of them use. New York has become the latest US city to ban foam containers, and the ban will take effect July 1, although there will be a grace period with no fines until January 2016, NBC reports. The initiative—introduced by Mayor Michael Bloomberg before he left office—will keep 30,000 tons of waste out of landfills every year, according to the city, which brought in the ban after it was unable to find an "environmentally effective, economically feasible, and safe" way to recycle polystyrene containers, the Guardian reports. Packing peanuts are also covered by the ban, although they will still be allowed in packages sent to the city from elsewhere. Nonprofits and businesses with under $500,000 in revenue can get exemptions if they can prove the switch will cause them financial hardship, although many establishments are expected to simply raise prices to cover the cost of the more expensive containers. "The cheapest one is the foam. If we go for the plastic and other materials—paper, let's say, for the coffee cups—it's extremely, very expensive," a deli employee tells amNewYork. "It will cost you 85% higher than the foam prices. That's a huge gap. It's not 5 cents, it's not 10 cents."