Recently on a trip to IHOP my son was given a kids menu titled "Clean Fun".  It reads, "time to get busy learning what you can do today and every day to give back to the planet".  It extolls the virtues of recycling, riding your bicycle instead of driving and the benefits of solar energy.  We had some pancakes leftover and asked for a take home container and were presented with Styrofoam!  Being confronted with such blatant hypocrisy prompted me to begin this petition.

These cheap lightweight containers may seem super convenient to bring home your yummy leftovers. However taking into consideration that they are not biodegradable I think it is too high a price for the environment for us to keep using them.  I don't believe convenience and corporate profits outweigh our human responsibility to provide our children with a sustainable planet. 

My ultimate goal would be to rid sacramento of styrofoam entirely.  Some restaurants even use styrofoam drinking cups for in house dining.  I think that is ridiculous.  I believe that San Francisco has made it's restaurants Styrofoam free and it gives me hope that we can accomplish this, too. 

Some research on enviromentally friendly take home containers has led me to find out about molded fiber packages which you can read more about here http://www.molded-pulp.com/  I also have started bringing containers from home when dining out to minimize cost to restaurants and waste in general.

It seems to me that our Earth is suffering - the extreme changes in weather are frightening.  Let's do our part a little at a time to relieve some of our burden on the planet.

 If you feel the same as I do, please sign this petition and no longer patronize IHOP until they reconcile their undeniable insincerity.  You can also print out your signed petition and bring it to your local IHOP, share this petition on your facebook page or email links to friends and family.

Sincerely,

Kathleen Wymer

For more information on the negatives of styrofoam read this excerpt from http://www.greenglancy.com

~Non-Biodegradable – Styrofoam appears to last forever, as it is resistant to photolysis or the breaking down of materials by protons originating from a light source. This fact, combined with the fact that Styrofoam is lightweight and floats, means that over time a great deal of Styrofoam has accumulated along coasts and waterways around the world. It is now considered the main component of marine debris.
~Not-Usually Recycled – Many municipal recycling programs do not recycle Styrofoam because it is virtually weightless which makes it worthless as scrap. The same lightweight property of the material makes collecting it difficult, because even light winds can send it blowing great distances.
~HFCs – Styrofoam is manufactured by using HFCs, or hydrofluorocarbons, which have negative impacts on the ozone layer and global warming. HFCs are less detrimental to the ozone than CFCs, which they replaced in the manufacturing of Styrofoam, but it is thought that the impact of HFCs on global warming is much more serious.
~Flame Retardants – The brominated flame retardants that are used on Styrofoam are also causing concern, and some research suggests that these chemicals might have negative environmental and health effects.