US recyclers have also invested in densification technology to recycle Styrofoam

Some regions of the U.S. has its own diversion rate goals, and Styrofoam is a small but challenging part of achieving them. According to the Alliance of Foam Packaging Recyclers, more than 118 million pounds of Styrofoam were recycled during the calendar year 2016. This figure includes 63 million pounds of post-consumer packaging and 55.7 million pounds of post-industrial recovery.  However, the recycled Styrofoam never served its intended purpose as a packaging material or other end-use application. So US recyclers now have invested in densification technology to achieve Styrofoam recycling.



Densification technology could greatly reduce emissions and transportation costs, but the market is still tough. Styrofoam recycling operations in Massachusetts and Illinois closed up over the summer. Grants and drop-off centers funded by industry groups have helped, but collecting large quantities of material efficiently is still an obstacle. Further expansion of this densification technology could help change that because it could expand the scale of Styrofoam recycling.



GREENMAX densifier offered by INTCO Recycling has used this densification technique. After you throw the waste Styrofoam that needs to be densified into the hopper, a grinding knife would crush it to fragments. Then the fragments entering the bottom chamber would be pushed forward by the screw, pass three sections of heating coil and transform to densified ingots, finally extruded by the nipple. One truckload of this densified foam is equivalent to 65-70 truckloads of regular material, which means that more than 60 times of the transportation and storage costs could be saved.



INTCO Recycling sells not only Styrofoam densifiers, but also Styrofoam recycling business chains attached to the machines. INTCO would further customize the machine models due to customers’ Styrofoam waste situation in detail, and purchase back ingots for INTCO frame making industry.



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