"I heard recently that Jamba Juice is moving away from styrofoam cups, but what is the big deal with styrofoam? Why does everyone want to get rid of it, and why can't we just recycle it?"
-Anne from Highland Park-
Styrofoam is the brand name (much like Kleenex or Xerox) for expanded polystyrene, a plastic polymer of styrene that can either be blown into form (expanded) or shaped into form (extruded) to provide either good insulation or strength respectively. The extruded polystyrene has plastic properties that render it impossible to recycle. We cannot truly recycle expanded polystyrene (Styrofoam) either, but rather, downcycle it into a different product. Once blown into shape, we cannot reform it into a form where we could reshape it. This means that if we throw expanded polystyrene into recycling streams, we do not reduce the use of virgin materials in the same way we do with paper, glass or aluminum. The virgin material, in this case and that of most plastics, is petroleum.
Beyond the issues with petroleum products and their effects on the environment, expanded polystyrene has some specific effects of its own. First, the process of making it can release styrene, a potential carcinogen, into the area where workers nearby can ingest it. Although OSHA could not introduce a hard rule limiting worker exposure to styrene, the industry recommends limits of 50 ppm. Second, the process of forming polystyrene causes combustion of the styrene, forming a volatile substance that when reacted with air forms ground-level ozone. In the upper atmosphere, ozone does a great job of blocking UV rays from the sun, but in the breathing zone, it causes lung irritation. Third, because of its lightweight properties (beneficial for packaging food products as #6 plastic), it takes up large volumes when mixed in standard single-stream recycling. This increases the volume, but not the weight, of solid waste pickups and reduces effectiveness. Lastly for our purposes, the material can be directly ingested by animals, working its way into the food chain and eventually human consumption where it, like all other plastics, can disrupt hormone cycles in humans.
Styrofoam as home insulation, its original purpose, has great benefit and generally does not go through the same life cycle as expanded polystyrene for food packaging and transport. We should still use it, until more viable alternatives are found. For food packaging, however, more viable options exist. We can use plant-based plastics for bakery item and general food packaging. Biodegradeable materials (like Puffy Stuff) can serve as protection during shipping, be reused as packaging material then used to fertilize plants. Many companies already use cardboard instead of expanded polystyrene to ship electronics and other fragile items. Thanks to Starbucks, we already have viable, recyclable (or biodegradable) options for transporting hot drinks.
Styrofoam is yet another product that serves a strong, unique purpose that we have expanded beyond reasonable need. If we can improve working conditions for those that produce it for building insulation, we have a relatively benign product that reduces need for fossil-fuel-based building conditioning systems. We do not, however, need to proliferate the product, as we have, in the food system. This is one of those products to REDUCE (or eliminate) in the grand scheme of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
(Thanks to EarthResource.org, Earth 911, and Way-To-Go.org for the information to help with this post.)
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