Southampton, NY Single-Use Items: Takeout Containers (2026)

Chapter 212 of the Town Code, Retail Checkout Bags, Expanded Polystyrene, Plastic Straws, and Stirrers, was adopted December 18, 2014 and rewritten in its entirety February 12, 2019. Section 212-3A bars any food service establishment, mobile food commissary, or store in the Town from possessing, selling, or offering for use single service articles, defined at § 212-1 to include cups, containers, lids, trays, plates and similar disposable items, that consist of expanded polystyrene, and specifically bars providing food in polystyrene foam containers. Two narrow carve-outs apply: expanded polystyrene containers used for prepackaged food that was already filled and sealed before the establishment received it, and polystyrene containers used to store raw meat, pork, fish, seafood or poultry sold from a butcher case or similar retail appliance.

Section 212-3B extends the ban to manufacturers and stores, prohibiting the use or sale of polystyrene loose fill packaging (packing peanuts) and coolers made of expanded polystyrene anywhere in the Town. Under § 212-3C, these restrictions became operative May 8, 2019, giving businesses time to sell through existing foam inventory before switching to alternative packaging. The Town's definition of 'expanded polystyrene' at § 212-1 covers blown and expanded or extruded foams processed by bead fusion, injection molding, foam molding or extrusion-blown molding, but excludes rigid polystyrene, so hard plastic clamshells are not swept in.

Enforcement runs through Town code enforcement and the Department of Land Management; § 212-5 makes any violation of Chapter 212, including the foam container ban, punishable under the Penal Law of the State of New York as a violation carrying a fine up to $1,000, imprisonment up to 15 days, or both, with each day a violation continues charged as a separate offense.