Here's your chance not just to be the mayor, but the original city planner as well! Imagine a medium sized city that would be developed with modern, low carbon transportation in mind, and other strategies to reduce the average citizens' carbon footprints.
What would that city look like? Would that make you more likely to want to live there?
Sustainable City >
Styrofoam
A sustainable city must stop the manufacturing of styrofoam (or polystyrene). Styrofoam makes up about 30% of our landfills. Though it can be "recycled", most curbside recycling agencies don't collect styrofoam, making it so much easier for people to just throw it away. Styrofoam is harmful to the environment in many other ways. It contains possible carcinogens which can leech into food that its contained to, when it's littered it often gets into animal's system's. It also is made with petroleum, a non-renewable resource. Polystyrene contains HCFC-22 (a relative of CFCs, which also depletes the ozone layer and is a greenhouse gas.) The recycling process of styrofoam isn't a full loop either, meaning that, for example, a styrofoam cup cannot be made into a styrofoam cup ever again. This incomplete loop means that resources are still being wasted. In conclusion, styrofoam is a harmful, wasteful material that could easily be replaced with other, more reusable materials. For more facts, please visit http://www.earthresource.org/campaigns/ … ofoam.html
Styrofoam is used for insulation, for example, styrofoam cups keep your hands from getting cold or hot, depending on what's in it. We can bear to have slightly cold or hot hands to have a more sustainable city. Styrofoam is also used for packaging. We should use an alternative packaging like corn-based composts.