They don’t look like much, but the new take-out containers and cutlery at Local Boyz Hawaiian Café may be a glimpse into the future of food service here.

Owners Kim and Roy Marchesi saw the writing on the wall for the plastic foam containers the restaurant previously sent out full of sweet ribs and shoyu chicken.

“There’s a lot of people who are anti-Styrofoam and I don’t blame them,” Roy Marchesi said. “You can’t do anything with it, you can’t recycle it.”

Local Boyz’s main clientele, Oregon State University students, have led the charge in the city against expanded polystyrene foam, known most readily by the brand-name Styrofoam.

In November, representatives of ASOSU’s Environmental Affairs Task Force and others came before the City Council regarding a ban on plastic foam containers.

Council members sent the matter to a committee, which decided to wait and see what the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition comes up with for dealing with polystyrene citywide. Options include a possible ban on plastic foam take-out containers or plastic shopping bags.

The new containers, made of

40 percent sugarcane, 45 percent reed and 15 percent straw, look and feel like paperboard, but are more sustainably constructed and more readily break down in the landfill.

Knives, forks and spoons are made of plant starch, but feel much heartier than the typical plastic items usually provided to customers.

There is a price premium, however. According to Local Boyz’s figures, costs for containers run about 11 percent higher than foam, with cutlery costing 21 cents more per piece.

The restaurant raised prices slightly recently, but not because of the take-out change. Food costs have also been on the rise.

“It all just came together at the same time,” Kim Marchesi said.

Last week’s introduction of the new items ends a months-long search for a product that would meet the restaurant’s standards.

Earlier efforts of clear plastic or folding boxes and other combinations of biodegradable products didn’t stand up well to hot food.

“With the plastic ones, we’d put our ribs in there and they’d just melt,” Kim Marchesi said. “We tried a part sugarcane-part bamboo one and they just collapsed after the hot food was in there.”

The new items hold up much better, even with the hot, saucy items that come from the Marchesis’ kitchen.

“The only thing I noticed was a little bit of moisture from our sweet shoyu chicken and there’s a lot of sauce in there,” Kim Marchesi said. “I’ve gotten no phone calls from anyone so far, though.”

Matt Neznanski can be reached at 758-9518.