Tell One Friend: Put Styrofoam in the Garbage

It's one of the most commonly asked questions: "Can I put Styrofoam in my blue bag for recycling?"

Styrofoam is difficult to recycle economically because it is extremely light and bulky. This makes it difficult to collect, sort, and transport to recyclers. Instead, the City of Edmonton intends to use Styrofoam as feedstock for the Waste to Biofuels Facility, where it will be turned into ethanol.

Let's be clear with friends, neighbours, and co-workers. Recycling works well, when we recycle right. Put Styrofoam in the garbage.

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Tell your friends, family, neighbours, and co-workers.

One Small Ask
"Will you put Styrofoam in the garbage?
Not in your blue bag.”

Prompt Them
Label at your recycling. "Thank you for NOT wish-cycling"

Give Feedback
"Hey, I noticed that you put Styrofoam in the recycling, months ago, but now you are putting it in the garbage. That's great. It helps our recycling system a lot.”

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The Reuse Centre also takes some types of Styrofoam. Save your Styrofoam balls, cubes, and sheets and bring them to the Reuse Centre.

Visit edmonton.ca/waste to learn What Goes Where.
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The Styrofoam Conundrum, by MCR Christine W.

Why it is more environmentally friendly for Edmonton to NOT recycle Styrofoam?

Some landfills report up to a third of their space consume by Styrofoam (polystyrene). Ultimately we should try to reduce our use of Styrofoam. This includes not eating out at places that have a lot of packaging, and buying less “stuff” that comes packed to death. The only good use of Styrofoam that I have found is Japanese dome homes (worth Googling). These are cute little homes that look like something either a smurf or an alien would live in but, sadly, are ridiculously expensive and would not be rated for Edmonton climate.

The main challenge with recycling Styrofoam is bulk; it takes a lot of resources to ship. These two items weigh the same amount, but the spoon is so much smaller. Twenty of these spoons could be held in your hand, but twenty Styrofoam cubes would fill a garbage bag.

A few places in Alberta collect Styrofoam, including Grand Prairie and Cochrane. Both cities ship their polystyrene products to Asia for further processing.

Photo from Aquatera Utilities Inc.
This pile of 22 transit bags makes
approx. 16.5 ingots.

 The friendly folks in Grande Prairie shared some details about their process. They collect a range of clean Styrofoam products, including items like coffee cups and packing peanuts. They use a  $35,000 machine to break it down to a tenth of the original size into a product called “ingots”. 

The ingots are shipped to Japan to be made into hard dark plastic objects such as picture frames, encasements for computers, park benches, flower pots, architectural molding, toys, etc.

It is great that other places are recycling Styrofoam, so why doesn't Edmonton?

It's because the new Waste-to-Biofuels facility at the EWMC will convert the bulky Styrofoam directly into fuel. This facility will start operations this spring and is expected to be fully operational in 2016. Initially, it will produce methane from the Styrofoam and other waste that is not easily recycled or composted. Later on, it will produce ethanol which will be mixed with gasoline to reduce harmful emissions.

Photo from Aquatera Utilities Inc.
An ingot is 1 meter long and about 14 lbs.

Benefits:

• Edmonton’s Styrofoam will not end up in a landfill here or anywhere else.
• The Styrofoam is turned INTO fuel instead of requiring MORE fuel to process.
• The final product (ethanol) will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Fortunately we are already on this path and are in a unique position to both keep our Styrofoam out of landfills AND create fuel from it!

Laura H. models a huge piece of Styrofoam.

Christine W. graduated from the MCR program in 2010. She has volunteered in many ways as an MCR including presentations to school groups, events and tradeshows, blog posts, presentations for new MCRs, compost workshops and the #YEG Repairathon.

Record MCR Volunteering