The first ten days of the lunar month, Moharram, are mourning period in Iran and other Shiite communities. The story says that Imam Hossein, the third leader of Shiites and the second son of Imam Ali, traveling from Mekka to Kufa, a city in Iraq, was blocked in his way. He and his family were surrounded and were deprived of water for nine days. On the tenth day, the battle started in the morning and by the noon all the men in Hossein troops were killed, except his oldest son, Sajjad, who later became the fourth leader.
Tasoua and Ashoura, meaning ninth and tenth, are the last two days of this period and big mourning ceremonies are held in Iran. It is a costume to offer free lunch and dinner to participating people and even passerby. Therefore, in this period the usage of foam food containers increases significantly which every year pushes the prices at least 2 or 3 times up.
This year, however, prices for plastic containers have dropped by 50 percent according to the head of Foam Food Container Producers of Iran, Mehdi Samadi.
The reason is that over the past four months the export of petrochemical goods have decreased considerably and the surplus of raw material for production of plastic containers have pushed production costs down. For the petrochemical producers, it is anyway a better idea to sell the goods to local manufacturers at a lower price than nothing. Good news for ceremony organizers but not for those worried for recycling and nature lovers.