FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Little pieces of styrofoam were ending up on the grass where dogs play, in the New River where manatees swim, and making a mess in Fort Lauderdale.
Joey Alaimo, Michael Haze, and Dave Marino are among the residents who are worried about the pollution coming from a developer’s property.
Workers were breaking thick sheets of styrofoam that had been kept for years in the property along Southwest Fourth Avenue, across from The Broward Center for the Performing Arts.
“It looked like it had been vandalized. I don’t understand why it had to be broken up in pieces like this all of a sudden one day,” Alaimo said.
The mess prompted city officials to issue a citation to Raintree 18 LLC, a Florida company Asaf “Asi” Cymbal registered last year, records show.
The area is also where there was a battle over a historic raintree that had to be moved closer to the water. The developer did not respond to Local 10’s requests for comment on the problem.
“If they were able to bring them in in full sheets, they could bring them out in full sheets,” Haze said. “It doesn’t make sense to break them up into little pieces and have things blow all over the neighborhood.”
A representative of the debris removal company working at the site blamed heavy winds and told Local 10 News by phone that they had to cut the styrofoam to get it out, and they were bringing more trucks to remove it.
Environmentalists have raised concerns about styrofoam since it is not biodegradable. City officials said the developer and the contractor had committed to removing the debris by Friday and did not.