GREENFIELD — The Board of Health has approved a request by Cumberland Farms for a temporary waiver of the city’s ban on expanded polystyrene foam as a result of supply chain issues.
The waiver will last through March 15, and in the meantime, the store is asked to allow the use of reusable cups.
“It’s just our beverage cups. … Specifically, it’s the hot cups that we’re having an issue with,” said Matt Durand of EG America, the parent company of the convenience store, which has a location on Federal Street. “We’re just having an issue sourcing the hot cups of a non-polystyrene variety.”
Expanded polystyrene foam is commonly, though incorrectly, referred to as sytrofoam, according to Peg Hall of Greening Greenfield.
Durand said his office has been coordinating these waiver requests across the state as a “last resort” while it continues to deal with supply chain issues.
Greg Lorance, also of EG America, said he is “very familiar” with the Greenfield store, as he was the district manager in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
“The cup we use as an alternative to polystyrene is the expanded polypropylene cup,” he said. “We use that in the states of Maine, Vermont, New York and individual stores in Massachusetts, where required by law.”
Though that material fits the parameters of the ban, Hall noted that polypropylene is not recyclable locally.
“The issue we were having is that early in the pandemic — and this is specifically pandemic-related — there was obviously an expansion to takeout products, which put very serious strains on the entire supply chain,” Lorance explained. “The manufacturers started becoming significantly delayed.”
He said the company purchases 25 million expanded polypropylene cups per year for the states he outlined.
“This has been a longstanding problem,” Lorance said, noting the issue has applied to manufacturers of all makes of cup, he noted. “We’ve been beating the ground trying to get any source we can.”
With the manufacturer the company typically uses expecting to be back in production to make the raw material for the cups by early February, Lorance initially asked for a waiver through March 1. He acknowledged, however, that was potentially an “aggressive” timeline.
“I can tell you our plans are to treat the production of the cups once it’s back in production like people treated toilet paper a year ago — scooping up as much as we possibly can of it and lining our shelves with it,” Lorance said.
Board of Health Chair Nancee Bershof asked if the store could encourage people to bring in their own cups.
“I recognize not everybody’s going to do that, but there are a lot of people who are willing to do that,” Bershof noted.
Lorance said the company discontinued its refill program due to the pandemic, per the recommendation of public health officials across the country. The program is still on pause, he said, but he wouldn’t be against recommending it if that was the will of the Board of Health.
Health Director Jennifer Hoffman, however, said she would “strongly not recommend it at this time.”
“People’s mouths are on their cup,” she said. “If Cumbies is not going to be able to clean things quickly, we can’t take that risk.”
Health Inspector Nicole Glabach agreed it wasn’t in the best interest from a disease control perspective.
“I can see if you’re buying a cup there that is brand new, but … putting a cup where you don’t know where it’s been up against the soda machine … you don’t know if somebody’s cleaned it,” she said.
Hoffman said while she doesn’t necessarily disagree with encouraging reusable cups in general, there were other factors her department had to consider.
Still, the Board of Health, with Bershof and member Alyssa Valbona as its voting members, supported a motion asking that Cumberland Farms allow its customers to use reusable cups. The board also unanimously supported granting a waiver on expanded polystyrene foam through March 15.
Board of Health member Samantha McIver, who was appointed at last month’s meeting, was also present at Wednesday’s meeting, though she had not been sworn in yet as a voting member.
Reporter Mary Byrne can be reached at [email protected] or 413-930-4429. Twitter: @MaryEByrne
