Local News in Brief : Plastic Ban Endorsed

Two Los Angeles City Council committees gave their preliminary endorsement Friday to a ban on a type of plastic foam container commonly used by fast-food restaurants.

The committees, meeting in a special joint session, voted unanimously to instruct the city attorney to draw up an ordinance that would ban the manufacture, sale or use of plastic foam products manufactured with chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, a gas that scientists believe breaks down the ozone layer of the atmosphere. The ozone shields the Earth from dangerous levels of ultraviolet rays that cause skin cancer.