Why curbside recycling services do not accept Styrofoam waste?

Are you worried about disposing of Styrofoam waste in your home? We found that many roadside recycling services do not accept Styrofoam waste, why?

Styrofoam is a challenging material to recycle

Styrofoam is generally not considered a valuable material for recycling. It is lightweight and lager volume, resulting in transportation difficulties. What’s more, it needs careful treatment to prevent contamination. This is why recycling options are few and most recycling centers do not recycle Styrofoam. There is only one company in the Seattle area that accept Styrofoam recycling.



Styrofoam recycling is not profitable

Styrofoam is mainly made of air and therefore contains only a small amount of plastic. Large quantities of Styrofoam require great cost of storage, transportation and labor to complete the whole recycling process, it is very low economic efficiency for businessmen, and even considered unprofitable. Therefore, there are fewer companies are willing to invest in Styrofoam recycling.

Styrofoam belongs to plastic #6, and plastic is made of oil, when oil is cheap, it is cheaper to make new plastics than to use recycled plastics. Low oil prices mean fewer companies are willing to pay for recycled plastics.



Recycling Styrofoam is expensive for residents

Free Styrofoam recycling is currently not available alongside recycling bins. Waste management requires extra trucks and drivers to collect Styrofoam. We need to increase the cost of garbage collection for everyone to cover the costs. This is unfair to people who don't have much Styrofoam.

The private enterprises currently provide roadside Styrofoam collection services for a fee. The user pay option is available to people who need curbside collection services.



In fact, considering the environment, economy and sustainable development of resources, Styrofoam Recycling is quite necessary. This requires us to solve a series of problems in the recycling process.

At present, Styrofoam recycling technology is relatively mature, and all you need to do is invest in a Styrofoam densifier to solve the storage, transportation problems during the recycling process, and greatly improve the efficiency of Styrofoam recycling.


INFOS