Virginia Code 10.1-1424.3: Expanded polystyrene food service containers prohibited; civil penalty
A. Beginning July 1, 2023, no food vendor that is a restaurant or similar retail food establishment and is part of a chain with 20 or more locations offering for sale substantially the same menu items and doing business under the same name, regardless of the form of ownership of such locations, shall dispense prepared food to a customer in an expanded polystyrene food service container.
Terms Used In Virginia Code 10.1-1424.3
- Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
- container: means all packages or containers intended or used to contain solids, liquids or materials and so designated. See Virginia Code 10.1-1414
- Department: means the Department of Environmental Quality. See Virginia Code 10.1-1400
- Expanded polystyrene food service container: includes plates, cups, bowls, trays, and hinged containers but does not include packaging for unprepared foods or packaging, including a cooler, used in the shipment of food. See Virginia Code 10.1-1414
- Food vendor: means an establishment that provides prepared food for public consumption on or off its premises and includes a store, shop, sales outlet, restaurant, grocery store, supermarket, delicatessen, or catering truck or vehicle; any other person who provides prepared food; and any individual, organization, group, or state or local government entity that regularly provides food as a part of its services. See Virginia Code 10.1-1414
- Fund: means the Litter Control and Recycling Fund. See Virginia Code 10.1-1414
- Litter: means all waste material disposable packages or containers but not including the wastes of the primary processes of mining, logging, sawmilling, farming, or manufacturing. See Virginia Code 10.1-1414
- Locality: means a county, city, or town as the context may require. See Virginia Code 1-221
- Person: means any natural person, corporation, association, firm, receiver, guardian, trustee, executor, administrator, fiduciary, or representative or group of individuals or entities of any kind. See Virginia Code 10.1-1414
- Prepared food: means a food or beverage prepared for consumption on or off a food vendor's premises, using any cooking or food preparation technique. See Virginia Code 10.1-1414
- Recycling: means the process of separating a given waste material from the waste stream and processing it so that it may be used again as a raw material for a product which may or may not be similar to the original product. See Virginia Code 10.1-1414
- State: when applied to a part of the United States, includes any of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the United States Virgin Islands. See Virginia Code 1-245
Beginning July 1, 2025, no food vendor of any type shall dispense prepared food to a customer in an expanded polystyrene food service container.
B. Any food vendor may request from the locality in which it is located an exemption from the provisions of subsection A. The locality may grant the exemption if the food vendor demonstrates to the satisfaction of the locality that compliance with subsection A would impose an undue economic hardship on the food vendor. For the purposes of this subsection, “undue economic hardship” means a situation in which (i) a food vendor has no reasonable alternative to the expanded polystyrene food service containers in use by that food vendor and (ii) compliance with subsection A would cause significant economic hardship to that food vendor. A locality may so exempt a food vendor for a period of not more than one year from the date of the exemption. A food vendor granted such an exemption may reapply to the locality before the expiration of the exemption, and the locality may grant an additional exemption from the provisions of subsection A not to exceed one year for each such reapplication if the food vendor demonstrates a continuing undue economic hardship at the time of reapplication to the satisfaction of the locality.
C. Any person who violates any provision of this section, upon such finding by an appropriate circuit court, shall be assessed a civil penalty of not more than $50 for each day of such violation. Any civil penalties assessed pursuant to this section in a civil action brought by the Attorney General in the name of the Commonwealth shall be paid into the state treasury and deposited by the State Treasurer into the Litter Control and Recycling Fund. Any civil penalty assessed pursuant to this section in a civil action brought by a locality shall be paid into the treasury of the locality, except where the violator of this section is the locality or its agent, in which case the civil penalty shall be paid into the state treasury and deposited by the State Treasurer into the Fund.
D. The Department shall post to its website information on how to comply with this section and how to file a complaint for a violation of this section.
2021, Sp. Sess. I, c. 262.