All One Needs To Know About Styrofoam Recycling

Styrofoam is found everywhere, in food packaging, egg cartons, meat trays, packaging inserts, toys, and more. Especially with people constantly on the move, takeaways, packaged food, and take-out coffees have increased, and the advent of styrofoam has made packaging vastly convenient. 

But wait. What is Styrofoam?

Technically, styrofoam is a brand by DuPont for a type of polystyrene foam that is used mainly in construction and insulation purposes.

So the material used in packaging commonly referred to as "styrofoam" is Expanded Polystyrene Foam (EPS). EPS or styrofoam as it is popularly known, is lightweight, has high chemical and heat resistance, and has hence found wide use in the food industry. 

What properties of styrofoam make it so popular?  

Polystyrene, as the name suggests means “poly” styrenes. Styrene is a small organic compound with the chemical formula C8H8. It is a pleasant-smelling liquid that is clear and colourless. When styrene is heated, each molecule called a monomer joins together to form long chains of repeating monomers called polymers. A lot of these styrene chains get interconnected together to form strong, interconnected mesh which is called polystyrene. This makes polystyrene highly stable. 

There are two forms of polystyrene- Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) and Extruded Polystyrene (XPS). XPS is used mainly in construction and architectural models, while the high stability and light weight of EPS make it useful for packaging. The properties of EPS that make it popular and widely used in the packaging and food industry are:

• Highly stable
• Lightweight
• Cost-effective
• Heat resistant

‍So what happens to all the styrofoam after it serves its purpose?‍

Styrofoam or Expanded Polystyrene Foam (EPS), as useful as it can be, has proved to be bothersome when it comes to recycling. All the properties of styrofoam that makes it convenient and easy to use can have several negative impacts on the environment when not discarded properly. The lightweight polystyrene makes it easily breakable into tiny pieces thus making it difficult to collect. While its chemical stability is a good thing, it's the very same characteristic that makes it difficult for EPS to break down. This means all the styrofoam gets piled up in landfills for years, occupying space and releasing harmful gasses such as CFCs- responsible for the depletion of the ozone layer.

One of the easiest ways to recycle styrofoam is to just reuse them but, the ones used for food are often contaminated with food particles that stick to the foam making them difficult to be reused.

However, used polystyrene can be reprocessed by transporting them to centralised recycling facilities. Here is what goes down at the reprocessing plants:

• The material is first shipped to recycling plants in large trucks and is checked for paper and food contaminants.
•  It is then sorted to separate clean material from soiled waste.
• The soiled styrofoam is washed and dried.
• It is then subjected to intense heat and friction to melt the styrofoam into a paste.
• The melted material is then passed through high pressure to turn them into pellets.
• These pellets are shipped to manufacturers to make other products.

However, the entire process is labour-intensive, expensive, and time-consuming prompting users to buy brand-new styrofoam which is in comparison, inexpensive.

Recycled polystyrene can be used for making packaging or insulation materials, but new polystyrene is always needed to make coffee cups or to store food keeping in mind hygiene factors.

But, there are a lot of benefits that come with recycling styrofoam. For starters, when styrofoam is passed through incinerators in processing facilities, the by-product of that is just carbon dioxide and water vapour. This can be used in waste-to-energy programs where the heat is captured and used for other purposes. The process is called thermal recycling.

What are the other benefits of recycling styrofoam?‍

Another interesting use of recycled polystyrene is as an alternative to wood. Styrofoam can be used to make park benches and fence posts. This product looks exactly like wood but is less expensive than that. Hence, a perfect alternative to wood which also saves millions of trees from felling.

Another benefit of recycling polystyrene is the reduction in the use of petroleum, which is a non-renewable resource. Manufacturing new styrofoam requires petroleum. So, recycling styrofoam reduces the use of petroleum which works in the favour of the environment.

But the most visible effect of recycling styrofoam is the reduction of litter on both land and sea.

Styrofoam, which is highly resistant to sunlight, oxygen, and water, when left in the open will remain in the landfill for hundreds of years, occupying space and causing land and soil pollution. It also poses a threat to marine life. As styrofoam is left in the open, it disintegrates into tiny particles that contaminate water. Fish think of it as food and consume them. This clogs their digestive system and kills them.

Recycling styrofoam subjects it to controlled heating, wherein the byproducts such as carbon dioxide and water vapour can be re-used. Burning huge quantities of styrofoam in the backyard or burn barrels release a lot of toxic chemicals into the environment.

While the recycling process can burn a hole in the pocket, it is necessary to keep in mind the environmental factors that come with not recycling as well. Styrofoam makes our lives easy, but the effect it has on the environment if mismanaged will take a toll on our quality of life in the longer run. At the same time, we can not just turn to alternatives. It is therefore important for us to use styrofoam more cautiously.