Styrofoam Recycling

The foam packaging (bricks, pellets, trays, etc.) that we use every day, as food containers and appliance packaging is more generically and correctly known as expanded polystyrene or EPS. The Dow Chemical Company actually owns the registered trademark for the term styrofoam. It refers to a group of polystyrene insulation products that the company manufactures in sheets for large-scale construction projects.

Polystyrene (PS) is classified under recycling symbol number 6. In recent years, several cities here in the US and elsewhere have banned the use of polystyrene as food containers due to the mounting scientific evidence that polystyrene can leach toxins into food.

In fact, The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently (June 10, 2011) released its 12th Report on Carcinogens (Roc) identifying Styrene as one of the "agents, substances, mixtures, and exposure circumstances that are known or reasonably anticipated to cause cancer in humans."

Styrene -- the colorless, flammable liquid, which has a sweet odor and is highly volatile -- is an industrial chemical used to make polystyrene and resins, such as reinforced plastic and rubbers.

The Report on Carcinogens (RoC) is a congressionally authorized public health document prepared by the National Toxicology Program for the U.S. Department of Health.

Resources:

Recycling Symbols in Squidoo

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is an area in the north Pacific Ocean, estimated to be roughly twice the size of Texas, filled with all kinds of plastic debris (including STYROFOAM). The area is believed to contain 100 million tons of plastic debris - there's more plastic here in than plankton.

The garbage deposited here are those discarded on land (80%) and jettisoned from ships (20%), over the years. The Patch formed due to a circular movement in the ocean's currents that pulls debris from the coasts of Asia, North America, and the Hawaiian islands and trap all these in stationary area, now known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Impact on Wildlife

Over the years, the plastic debris break down into very small pieces that are ingested by fish, birds, and other marine life in the area. This has caused tremendous damage to species inhabiting and depending on the area for sustenance.

It is said that cleaning up the area could bankrupt an entire nation and until today, there is still no coordinated international effort to deal with it. Experts agree that the best thing we can do, at the moment, is to stop the growth of this gigantic floating dumpster, by preventing garbage to reach our rivers and sewers, where these eventually end up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch..

Resources:

Wikipedia
Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Flickr
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Image courtesy of Voedselencyclopedie.nl

Cutting styrofoam, even with the finest saw, is quite messy, and you have to deal with foam powder afterwards. The best and safest method for cutting styrofoam is by using a heated knife.

Several times each year, we all ship something to someone - a gift to a friend or family member, a TV or a computer monitor to a repair shop, or damaged merchadise to a shop. Oftentimes, we have to drive to the store to buy styrofoam for packaging and padding of the items we're shipping. Why not keep the styrofoam that came with your latest purchase for future use? You can reduce the volume by cutting large bricks into smaller pieces (using heated knife) and keeping these in tidy plastic bags, you can easily locate when you need packaging.

Dow Chemicals make styrofoam sheets with flame retardant coating or film cover. This is what professional home builders and skilled enthusiasts use for insulation in their construction projects. EPS or styrofoam is flammable and should not be used for makeshift insulation in your house or living quarters. But, if you're thinking of insulating non-residential structures in your property, like a tool shed, a dog house, a pump house, or a work shop, styrofoam is an excellent material to use.

Image courtesy of Katahdin Cedar Log Homes

You can recycle your styrofoam or EPS with limonene, an orange extract used in a wide variety of applications as cosmetics ingredient, food flavoring, cleaning solvent, and biofuel. Spraying styrofoam with limonene will reduce volume and dissolve the brick into a viscous gel that can be used as super glue.

Sony Corporation of Japan is using this method on an industrial scale, since they have to deal with a lot of foam packaging for the appliances that they sell. After dissolving the bricks and pellets, the styrofoam is separated from limonene and reconstituted as new EPS, while the limonene solvent can be reused for the next batch of styrofoam to be dissolved.

Resources:

Wikipedia
Limonene

Many counties and cities aren't accepting styrofoam for pick-up or curbside recycling. If you're having difficulty finding a nearby recycler who will take in your EPS, try the service that Earth 911 provides. Simply type in the material you want recycled and your zip or city, in the search bar, and it will return multiple locations within your county or state, that will recycle the material for you.

Find a recycling site now:
Earth 911: Making Every Day Earth Day

4 Easy Steps To Keep Your Cell Phones Away From The Landfill:

1. Use the Purchase Price List to find the buyback value of your phones.

2. Print a free FedEx Pre-paid Shipping Label so we can pay the shipping.

3. Box up your phone handsets and batteries (no accessories, chargers, etc.) then ship with our pre-paid label.

4. Get Cash! We'll issue your check within 4 business days of receiving your cell phones.

EPS bricks can be used as plant beds and drainage, and sheets can be used as floaters (see picture) to provide exact spacing for the growing plants. You can check with your local farmer (if you live in a farming area) or at the local college or university's agriculture department if they have a need for your styrofoam for recycling. You can even start your own backyard or roof deck garden (for city dwellers) and use the styrofoam for a bit of organic farming. You're reusing a material that's hard to recycle and producing some fresh vegies for your own use, how cool can it get?

Image of lettuce production using styrofoam floaters courtesy of Aesop.Rutgers.edu

Fishermen and fishing enthusiasts use styrofoam as markers, floats, buoys, wagglers, fishing fly holders, underwater net trap lifters, and parts for artificial reefs. Fisherfolks in China use styrofoam pieces bagged into large pontoons to build fishing rafts (see image).

If you're located near a fishing community or have friends who are into fishing, oyster farming, etc., they probably have a need for that bulky styrofoam packaging you want recycled.

EPS is an excellent medium to sculpt figureheads, busts, and other objects. If you're into model trains, I'm sure you're using EPS as part of your train table, and to create a beautiful and realistic miniature landscape, with trees, mountains, and buildings made of styrofoam. That's a hobby I've always wanted to get into...as soon as I can get away from my PC.

Most art shops and kiddie centers will take in EPS bricks to use as material for their student's creative activities. Check with your nearest kindergarten center and see if they're interested in that bulky EPS in your store room, you might just help discover a budding artist in your neighborhood.

Mailing and shipping companies, like UPS, Fedex, Mailboxes Etc, DHL, use very large volumes of EPS in shipping items worldwide - everyday! You can check with your local UPS store and see if they accept reusable styrofoam peanuts and bricks. Some stores accept only peanuts, but most will take in both packing peanuts and bricks.

The Alliance of Foam Packaging Recyclers has a list of EPS National Mail-back Locations (PDF) that you might want to download. As explained in the site, at last year's gas prices per gallon, it's certainly more economical to ship them your EPS than haul it to a local recycler, unless the collection center is quite near your home or office. If you do ship your recyclable EPS to any one of the listed recyclers, please make sure that your material is clean and free of tape, glued cardboard, plastic film. They will not accept food packaging EPS of any kind, and you might consider reducing the volume of your material by cutting it into small bricks and boxing it.

You can also sell your styrofoam to wholesale buyers. Obviously, you'd need to have a large amount of the stuff to attract bulk buyers. If you're trying to dispose of a big supply of styrofoam in your storage building, you can search for buyers at the American Chemistry Council's Recycled Plastic Markets Database. They do have a list of buyers conveniently classified according to location, and you can easily find someone who might be interested in purchasing the material in your warehouse.

...or Seattle's Best, or Papa Luigi's Diner, or wherever you buy your coffee latte. Styrofoam cups and other food packaging EPS constitute a large part of the millions of tons of solid waste we dump in our landfills or end up in our sewers and waterways, each year. If you do this once a day for one full year, you just prevented 300 cups or so from getting added to the mountain of trash we dump into the environment each year. Now, imagine if all your friends and their friends do the same. We're making this a better world, one coffee cup at a time.