Expanded Polystyrene and Styrofoam - Environmental Impact and Solutions

Expanded Polystyrene is one of the most versatile packaging and insulation materials available today. It is also very cost-effective. Due to these factors and high usage, it is one of the biggest environmental pollutants. Read on to know its impact and what can be done about it.

The Composition of Expanded Polystyrene

Expanded Polystyrene also known as EPS and its close relative Styrofoam or XPS are closed cell, thermoplastic foams manufactured from solid beads of Polystyrene infused with an expansion gas usually pentane. 

When heat in the form of steam is applied to them they expand greatly, about 40 times in size and are known as puff beads. The material is allowed to cool and the pentane liquifies which creates a partial vacuum inside the beads.

With a second heat treatment, the beads can be moulded into Expanded Polystyrene blocks or other customised shapes such as fish crates or electronics packaging.

Expanded Polystyrene can be moulded into a wide range of densities starting as low as 12kg/m3 and going up to 50kg/m3 thus determining finished product properties like compressive strength and thermal R-value.

Expanded Polystyrene products are usually strong, have good impact resistance, water resistance and stable long-term thermal conductivity.

Expanded Polystyrene being 95 to 98 per cent air is one of the lightest packaging materials around, and hence adds very little weight to packaging, which means transport costs and fuel emissions are kept lower. Its colour is also a benefit as it can be marked with specific company logos and labelling can easily be attached directly.

These many advantages of Expanded Polystyrene and its low cost make it an ideal solution for many uses. Unfortunately, these same advantages have caused Expanded Polystyrene to be one of the biggest sources of global pollution and an environmental catastrophe.

‍Expanded Polystyrene and Styrofoam Pollution

Current global production stands at around 16 million metric tons a year. Sadly only a little less than 1 per cent of this volume is recycled today. And this needs to change soon.

Most Expanded Polystyrene and Styrofoam products make it to landfills, although it accounts for less than 1 per cent of total waste in landfills, the volume it takes up is tremendous thus filling what could have run for years much faster. EPS is non-biodegradable, taking hundreds perhaps thousands of years to decompose. Approximately 1,300 tons of Styrofoam and Expanded Polystyrene are buried in just American landfills daily.

Even Styrofoam and EPS that makes their way to a landfill to be disposed of can easily be carried by the wind thanks to their lightweight nature and blown out of the landfill into the open environment which is almost impossible to recollect.

Most of this Polystyrene foam waste comes from large sources such as the construction industry, where it is used widely for thermal insulation. Large sheets are cut to size the walls of the structure and are placed in between the wall and plaster. This generates a large amount of scrap from cut-offs which are normally sent to a landfill.

The global food industry, particularly fish and other seafood is also part of the problem. Even though there are recycling schemes in place for such expanded polystyrene products it is not available everywhere and a huge portion of it is not recycled and ends up in landfills, open land and the sea.

The Packaging industry also produces large amounts of Expanded Polystyrene and Styrofoam scrap. It comes from industries that have a lot of fragile in and out cargo on a regular basis. It all comes with Styrofoam or Expanded Polystyrene used as the protection material thanks to its high impact resistance and shock absorption properties. Such scrap is not usually recycled. 

This is where change needs to come in. Contractors and companies with large amounts of Expanded Polystyrene or Styrofoam scrap should become more responsible and do their part in keeping EPS and Styrofoam out of the natural environment. To do this they can contact their local recycling centres and get it dropped off or even collected by them instead of dumping it in skips.

Doing this can even end up in savings as most countries have high skip collection charges, more so from industrial areas.

For companies located in the Middle East, GreenTheory Waste Management & Recycling Solutions can help you keep the environment clean and save you skip fees by collecting your Styrofoam or Expanded Polystyrene waste at your location at No charge to be taken and recycled safely.

‍Various Environmental Impacts caused by Expanded Polystyrene and Styrofoam

Expanded Polystyrene and Styrofoam are non-biodegradable materials, so they do not break down over time and stay in the environment for hundreds of years. When large pieces that have made it into the open environment break into smaller ones over time due to wear and tear and exposure to the elements they spread even further and deeper into various environments such as forests, streams and the ocean.

The impacts of this can be seen and measured at various levels.

When left unchecked in the environment for long periods of time some of the many chemicals such as styrene, ethylbenzene, toluene, benzene, meta- and para-xylene, isopropylbenzene, and isopropyltoluene can start to leach into the ground polluting the water table. Ethylbenzene and styrene are the chemicals that leach out the most.

Pollution caused by Styrofoam and Expanded Polystyrene not only spoils the pristine look of nature but is also harmful to our earth's animal life.

A lot of this ends up eaten by birds and animals who often mistake it for food, after ingesting it, it can block the stomach and cause death due to starvation, choking, or chemical buildup in the digestive system.

When it makes it into our streams, rivers and oceans, the leachates pollute the water and also get consumed by fish. If these fish do not die for the same reasons as the other birds and animals, they can get caught by fishing boats and make their way into our food chain full of chemicals that will end up inside our own bodies, poisoning us as well.

‍Responsible Disposal of Expanded Polystyrene and Styrofoam

Even though Expanded Polystyrene is completely non-biodegradable, the good news is that it is 100 per cent recyclable. It can be re-made into a variety of products such as packaging peanuts and fish trays. It can also be used to make polystyrene products such as clothes hangers and picture frames and even plastic furniture.

When Expanded Polystyrene and Styrofoam make their way to landfills it takes up a lot of valuable space due to their bulky nature which could have otherwise been used better. Moreover, modern landfills are designed to be sealed once full so there is no way to extract it at a later stage or for it to biodegrade.

Recycling of Styrofoam and Expanded Polystyrene products go through a similar line of processing.

The first step is segregation. All Expanded Polystyrene and Styrofoam must be clearly separated from other waste and debris.

Compaction is the next stage of the process, it can be done either at the location of the scrap material or transported to the recycling centre and then done. Good compactors can reduce up to 98 per cent volume.

Larger pieces get shredded into small flakes to prepare for the pelletising machines. Smaller products such as packaging peanuts and puff beads skip this step and go directly to pelletisation.

Melting and Extrusion are the final steps. The small flakes are fed into extruders where heat is applied to them and they are melted. This is allowed to cool and solidify into solid blocks with all the air extracted. These blocks can be shredded into new general-purpose pellets that can be used to make new products.

With the existence of such recycling technology, consumers and companies alike should take more steps towards responsible recycling of Expanded Polystyrene and Styrofoam products and keep our environment cleaner and greener.

Contact your local recycler for more information on how you can get your Expanded Polystyrene and Styrofoam recycled safely. For those in the Middle East, contact our friends at Green Theory for an immediate solution.