Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. WELCH. I thank the gentleman.

Madam Chair, I want to speak about an amendment Mr. Moran is about to offer. This is about the use of Styrofoam in our cafeterias. You may remember that in 2007, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi established the Greening the Capitol program, and the goal was to make the U.S. House of Representatives a national leader in resource stewardship and sustainable business practices, and we made significant progress.

One of the places where we made progress was we replaced the Styrofoam in the cafeteria and used recyclable dishware. We are now back to Styrofoam. McDonalds doesn't use Styrofoam. Years ago, McDonalds and other fast food restaurants replaced Styrofoam with recyclable paperboard containers. There is no reason we can't do that. There is no reason we shouldn't do it.

Polystyrene is practically unrecyclable. Most polystyrene containers end up in landfills and incinerators. There are cancer-causing chemicals that are used during its manufacture. In 1986, the EPA report on solid waste named polystyrene manufacturing the fifth largest creator of hazardous waste.

We should adopt the Moran amendment and do it the right way.

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