The Ocean Club Golf Course at Atlantis is taking steps to help protect the environment and reduce the amount of plastic waste that negatively impacts the world’s oceans and marine life.
On average, employees at the championship golf course alone use 55,000 Styrofoam cups a year! Golf Course General Manager Robbie Leming says since January 2018, his team has adopted a “no Styrofoam” policy.
“Styrofoam debris presents a big problem for our oceans and unfortunately, the single-use cups that we have been using don’t just go away after you toss them in the trash. In an effort to reduce our carbon footprint, we have phased out the use of Styrofoam.
We are instead using paper cups and what can be referred to as “keep cups” – personalized RTIC tumblers which were purchased for each member of our team to be used at work during their shift,” he explains, adding that this environmentally-friendly initiative is very necessary. “A study published in the journal Science says that every year 8 million metric tons of plastic ends up in our oceans and that figure could increase by ten-fold over the next 10 years if actions are not taken. Our “no Styrofoam” initiative is just one of several that we intend to do to help reduce the impact that we have on sustaining the environment.”
According to the US Department of Sanitation, Styrofoam – the name commonly given to expanded polystyrene, which is a type of plastic – cannot be recycled despite the recycling symbol displayed on many of the containers created from it and can last decades in a landfill.
More alarmingly, while it sits in that landfill, Styrofoam releases methane gases that are said to have over 20 times the ozone destroying potency as CO2.
Further, because it’s such a lightweight material, Styrofoam can easily be carried away by the wind, often ending up in the ocean where it gets broken down into smaller pieces and ingested by marine life.
Fun fact: "Styrofoam" is actually just a brand name! The white material making up your coffee cup is actually called expanded polystyrene (EPS).
