Styrofoam heirlooms for future generations

It’s easy to save Styrofoam cups, carryout containers, and packing materials as heirlooms for our great-great-great-great-….grandchildren. We simply need to write a message on them and put them in the trash. Then, for the next million years or more, our distant descendants can dig them up at the landfill to see the perfectly preserved messages we left for them. Or we can help prevent the planet from becoming a giant trash heap by encouraging the businesses we patronize to use biodegradable and reusable materials.

We also have the opportunity to join our heirlooms underground sooner that we hoped. Recent research has shown that “Styrofoam cups and containers readily leach toxins into the food and drinks they contain, and the process is accelerated by heat as well as contact with fatty and acidic foods.” (www.beyondplastics.org) Generations of our descendants will have to live with our choices. So do we.

Thomas Cook

Iowa City