Recycling polystyrene cups, plates, packaging materials, egg cartons and meat trays will become much easier in Colchester County in Nova Scotia thanks to a $50,000 grant from the Foam Recycling Coalition.
Colchester is the second community to receive a grant from the FRC and the Foodservice Packaging Institute. They plan to use the grant to upgrade their facilities and purchase new polystyrene recycling equipment to compress and ship polystyrene.
"In Colchester County, Nova Scotia, polystyrene foam will no longer be looked upon as the one that got away," said Wayne Wamboldt, director of waste management for Colchester County. "Although it has long been recognized that polystyrene products are a valuable commodity, the expense of shipping a product to market that is mostly air has deterred the recycling of this material.
Now, with recent developments in densifying equipment, it is possible to get recycled polystyrene material to markets in a cost effective manner. With support from the Foam Recycling Coalition, Colchester County is in the process of purchasing equipment and upgrading the material recovery facility to begin recycling polystyrene foam products. In Colchester County, polystyrene will soon be a recyclable material."
Foam recycling keeps growing throughout the world and grants like these help support these efforts. Communities are purchasing densifiers and compactors to help efficiently condense foam so that it can be shipped to companies that are producing new products from foam. The demand for recycled foam continues to increase as more and more companies see the cost benefits of using foam.
The grant is made possible through contributions to the Foam Recycling Coalition, which focuses exclusively on increased recycling of post-consumer polystyrene foam. Its members include Americas Styrenics; Cascades Canada ULC; CKF Inc.; Chick-fil-A; Commodore; Convermex; D&W Fine Pack; Dart Container Corp.; Dolco Packaging, A Tekni-Plex Company; Dyne-A-Pak; Genpak; Hawaii Foam Products; NOVA Chemicals Corp.; Pactiv Foodservice/Food Packaging; Shell Chemical LP; Styrolution America; and TOTAL Petrochemicals & Refining USA. Additional support of the coalition comes from the EPS Industry Alliance.
The coalition will continue to offer grants that promote foam recycling in residential curbside, drop-off and commercial programs. Additional grant recipients will be announced later this year. More information about foam recycling is available at https://www.fpi.org/Recovery.