The Department of Solid Waste will be celebrating Earth Day April 22 with a Styrofoam Recycling Extravaganza. During this special Earth Day event, running from April 22 through 30, residents can bring Styrofoam to any residential transfer station in Madison County during regular business hours for those stations.
This special Earth Day collection of Styrofoam is part of a six-month pilot project started by the Solid Waste Department in December 2015.
“We have collected 1,205 pounds of Styrofoam for recycling in the past three months just at one transfer station,” said Recycling Coordinator Mary Bartlett. “Considering the fact that Styrofoam is extremely light yet incredibly bulky, this is a huge amount. Having this collection at all the transfer stations will make recycling Styrofoam more convenient for residents throughout Madison County.”
Residential transfer stations collecting Styrofoam include the main landfill transfer station on Buyea Road, Cazenovia Transfer Station on Constine Bridge Road, Hamilton Transfer Station on Cranston Road and Sullivan Transfer Station on Bolivar Road in Chittenango.
Residents wishing to recycle their expanded polystyrene foam #6 – commonly called ‘Styrofoam’ – should bring it in clear plastic bags with all tape and labels removed. Acceptable Styrofoam must be WHITE and clean with all tape and labels removed. Items can include packaging foam and clean egg cartons, foam cups (rinsed) and clean take-out containers.
Packing peanuts, soiled containers, colored Styrofoam and packing made of materials other than Styrofoam will not be accepted.
It takes 50 years for EPS foam to break down, but since polystyrene is not biodegradable, it never really leaves the environment. “That’s why we have been working diligently to find a
“That’s why we have been working diligently to find a practical way to recycle Styrofoam,” said James Zecca, director of the Department of Solid Waste and Recycling. “EPS foam breaks into small pieces, and like plastic will cause problems in the digestive tracks of animals unlucky enough to ingest it. Foam is lightweight, yet bulky, especially packaging foam and takes up a lot of space in our landfills. Styrofoam is quite valuable when properly prepared for recycling, yet difficult since it needs to be densified for shipping to a qualified recycler.”
The county has an outlet for Styrofoam for the six months the pilot is underway. In June 2016, Solid Waste staff will decide the future of Styrofoam recycling in Madison County.
“We want to see how much there is in the waste stream and whether it makes sense to invest in a densifier of our own,” Bartlett said.
For more information, call Bartlett at 800.721.2208.
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Hello. I saw your article, and thrilled to see other communities hoping to rid their communities of this noxious poison. We are trying to rid our San Luis Obispo County of this, and have successfully got 4 cities to join an ordinance to its use in restaurants and sale in all retail stores. It has worked! Within one year, 90% of our restaurants have switched to alternative products, and nearly all our retail stores do not sell the ‘foam’ products, including Foam coolers and packing peanuts. We are working on the grocery stores to refuse selling meats and eggs that are brought in on ‘foam’. Keep up the effort, and hopefully by 2017, we can get Polystyrene out of the food industry.
EPS Styrofoam is every bit as recyclable as many other materials such as cardboard or paper products and is not covered in wax or other external packaging materials that make the other products non-recyclable. To suggest EPS should be removed from the product chain completely is not any more environmentally friendly in any way.