SAN FRANCISCO — This city, long known for being on the culinary cutting edge, is now exporting a more ignominious dining trend that could soon make its way to New York: the soggy lunch.

Last month, San Francisco banned the Styrofoam-type boxes that are ubiquitous at takeout counters across the country. Most restaurants replaced the so-called clamshell boxes with biodegradable substitutes. However, the substitute boxes start the composting process as soon as they are exposed to heat and moisture, which means diners can unexpectedly end up with a lapful of pad thai or a messy bagful of barbecued beef.

“I don’t like them. They soak through. Got to eat it fast,” a home entertainment system salesman, Al Ribeiro, 55, said as he hurried down the street clutching his just-bought turkey dinner. “Lots of gravy. Might soak through,” he added.

“I was contemplating how long it’s going to last,” another lunchtime takeout customer, Allen Brester, 31, said. “This is pretty soggy stuff.”
Their to-go orders came from Tommy’s Joynt, a family-owned restaurant that has been serving carved meat sandwiches and dinners to locals and tight-fisted tourists for 60 years. One of the owners, Susie Katzman, said she got a flurry of complaints when Tommy’s switched over to the new containers, which are made from plant-based products such as cornstarch, sugarcane, and potatoes.

On a recent evening, Ms. Katzman heard from a San Francisco police officer who said his dinner essentially disintegrated while he was out on a call. “Pretty soon the sauce becomes part of the biodegradable corn syrup or whatever. Your turkey gravy ends up with a sweet taste to it,” Ms. Katzman said.

The restaurateur told the officer to take it up with City Hall. “It’s San Francisco,” she said resignedly. “Another one of those ridiculous laws.”
Ms. Katzman said she has looked at and tested some biodegradable containers that hold up better, but they cost between 35 cents and $1 each. The substitutes she is using now have already added about a dime to the cost of every meal that goes out the door. “That’s a lot when you’re only getting $7,” she said.

A more expansive ban on so-called Styrofoam packaging for food service is being proposed in New York by state Senator Liz Krueger, a Democrat of Manhattan. “There’s really no time left for debate,” she wrote in a Web log post this month. “Picture Styrofoam and you picture a product produced from petroleum that takes up to 500 years to fully disintegrate, which is devastating to our environment. … That cup you may have grabbed a quick drink from on July 4th will outlive you by hundreds of years.”

A spokesman for Ms. Krueger, Travis Proulx, said his boss plans to make a strong push to get the bill enacted when the Legislature reconvenes next year. Under the proposed law, the Department of Environmental Conservation would determine whether a specific product made with Styrofoam-type polystyrene can be replaced with a “suitable affordable alternative” that is compostable or recyclable. If so, the foam version will be banned. Products that are up to 15% more expensive than polystyrene will be considered affordable under the law, which would allow a year for restaurants and other food vendors to comply.

“Our bill actually approaches this in a responsible way,” Mr. Proulx said. The measure also would cover the millions of plastic foam trays used in New York’s public schools.

Proponents of Styrofoam bans, such as one that has been in effect in Portland, Ore., since 1989, contend that the containers damage the environment, pose a cancer risk, and are unrecyclable. “Fully 30% of the waste currently in landfills is from various Styrofoam products,” Ms. Krueger wrote.

Foam packaging manufacturers and many scientists assert that Stryofoam-like products have gotten a bad rap. The industry contends that it actually takes less energy to produce a foam box than one made from paper or some plant source. While foam containers are made from oil, they consume relatively little of it because they are “98% air,” a spokesman for the Plastics Foodservice Packaging Group, Michael Levy, noted.

“When you look at the life cycle trade-offs of energy, air, and water, every product … takes energy and raw materials. On balance, we stack up pretty good, but in the world of public opinion, that’s a tough sell,” he said.

In 1991, McDonald’s eliminated foam boxes, but it did so primarily in response to concerns that the manufacturing process was damaging the ozone layer. The process was later changed.

Some institutions considering Styrofoam bans have turned them down. In 1997, the University of California at San Diego decided not to replace foam drinking cups with paper ones. “While neither product is friendly to the environment, Styrofoam may be the lesser of two evils,” a university official, Larry Barrett, wrote. Student researchers reaffirmed that conclusion last year.

While Styrofoam may take centuries to decompose, that may not be entirely a bad thing. Damaging seepage from landfills is due to trash that is degrading, not trash that is inert. Paper can also last decades when buried.

In addition, unless foam packaging is burned, it essentially fixes petroleum in a form that does not contribute to global warming. Paper- and plant-based products could be a greater concern, especially as they release methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

Mr. Levy also disputed Ms. Krueger’s claim that plastic foam is 30% of what’s dumped in landfills. He said EPA and industry figures put it at less than 1%, much of it from building and shipping materials. He also said chemicals that leach into food heated in plastic containers do so in trace amounts considered safe by the Food & Drug Administration.

Mr. Levy said he suspects the Styrofoam ban won’t get far in New York. “It’s not the same emotionalism we see out in California,” he said.