Ban, ban, everywhere a ban!
The Department of Education and Mayor DeBlasio have officially lifted the cellphone ban in schools. Yippee. It isn’t like any parent adhered to it anyway — I certainly didn’t — but it’s nice to know it’s legit now. The mayor, who adheres to all rules and regulations, flouted the restrictions of his predecessor and admitted that Dante brought his phone to school, claiming it was important for parents to be able to get in touch with their children.
“Dante’s school tends to be pretty open, so yes, he brings a cellphone,” DeBlasio said. “I think it is, for parents, very, very important to know how to reach their kids.”
In an article in New York Magazine he added, “It’s something Chirlane and I felt ourselves when Chiara took the subway to high school in another borough each day.”
Great news for parents, but how will this affect those cellphone guardian businesses that sprang up around schools? Those savvy entrepreneurs who safe-guarded the phones for a $1 day from each kid for as long as school was in session?
Did he think of that?
At the same time Mayor DeBlasio de-banned the cellphone he banned Styrofoam packaging in restaurants. He giveth and he takith away.
According to a press release, with one swift slash of the pen he banned the use of expanded polystyrene including foam cups, plates, trays or clamshell containers, and the ubiquitous polystyrene pellets also known as packing peanuts in the City of New York
The release advised that after countless discussions with all manner of experts it was determined that there was no way to recycle those pesky pellets. Sanitation only had implements in place for cans and bottles.
As a result, beginning July 1, you will no longer be able to grab a BLT at your local diner “to go” in a Styrofoam box. Nope. Retailers, markets, and vendors who use these products will be up a plastic river without a plastic paddle.
They can join the cellphone guardians.
The mayor’s press release added “After consultation with corporations, including Dart Container Corporation, non-profits, vendors and other stakeholders, the Department of Sanitation, has determined that expanded polystyrene foam cannot be recycled, which led to the ban. Sanitation also determined that there currently is no market for post-consumer EPS collected in a curbside metal, glass, and plastic recycling program.”
However, I find that last bit a mite confusing in as much as according to a report in a Plastics Recycling Update dated Feb. 2014, Dart Container Cooperation has recycling plants in California and Michigan that do just that. So why the “cannot be recycled” declaration?
They should start one here. Just think of the employment opportunities it would present. All those out-of-work cellpone guardians and vendors that supply the pesky pellets would have an opportunity handed to them on a biodegradable tray.
Not for Nuthin but they could use the old cellphone cubbies to collect pellets. That way, land-fill free of Styrofoam, New York remains green, the mayor scores one for the environment, and there’s a reduction in unemployment. Priceless.
Follow me on Twitter @JDelBuono.
