Recycling

With more than 200 collection sites in the U.S. and Canada, EPS generates several million pounds of post-consumer EPS annually. Working with nationally recognized OEMS, EPS manufacturers have developed an effective recycling infrastructure for post-consumer EPS packaging. It ca n be easily recycled into new foam packaging or durable consumer goods such as cameras or video cassette casings, and due to its resiliency, can be recycled over and over again.

Source Reduction

By working with resin producers and equipment manufacturers to minimize the use of natural resources and air and water emissions, EPS processors are able to make packaging parts with less virgin material, white maintaining the same high level of performance. By improving the design of a single product line, one polystyrene manufacturer, for example, diverted more than 28,000 tons of waste from disposal in 1994. This is the equivalent of the amount of municipal solid waste a typical town of 35,000 - like Annapolis, MD - generates in an entire year.

Reuse

Expanded polystyrene loose fill is one of the most commonly reused packaging materials. Consumers and manufacturers reuse nearly 30 percent of all loose fill; for mailing services, the reuse rate is as high as 50 percent in some facilities. And, in special market applications, EPS molded parts can often be reused multiple times.

Polystyrene represents a tiny fraction - less than one percent by weight - of the solid waste stream. ⁽¹⁾

Prior to 1988, there was essentially no recovery of post-consumer polystyrene for recycling. Although the availability of polystyrene recycling programs varies by community, in 1996, just eight years later, almost 54 million pounds of polystyrene were recycled. ⁽²⁾

Post-consumer EPS foam is reprocessed and used again in new foam packaging. Foam can also be manufactured into consumer products like coat hangers, CD jewel cases and agricultural trays.

The percentage of post-consumer polystyrene diverted from landfills, as a result of source reduction, re-use and recycling, has risen from 0.8% in 1974 to 10.4% in 1994.⁽³⁾

Between 1974 and 1994, the amount of polystyrene packaging and disposables diverted from the waste stream through source reduction increased more than 20-fold, eliminating more than 800,000 tons of polystyrene. The amount of polystyrene source reduced in 1994 had an energy savings equivalent of having recycled 24% of polystyrene packaging and disposables produced in that year.⁽⁴⁾

Expanded polystyrene loosefill (peanuts) is one of the most commonly reused packaging materials. Consumers and manufacturers re-use nearly 30 percent of all loose fill; for mailing services, the reuse rate is as high as 50 percent.⁽⁵⁾

No chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) have ever been used in the manufacture of expanded polystyrene transport packaging.