What Do You Do With Styrofoam Packaging?

We're embarking on a long overdue attic clean-out which includes some remnant boxes with nothing but lots of big, chunky pieces of styrofoam. As we all head into the gift giving season there will be a huge societal surge in styrofoam waste. It feels awful to just throw this stuff into the trash. We did a little poking around to see if the city of Boston accepts styrofoam for recycling..

Styrofoam is polystyrene (#6) and while #6 is listed on the City of Boston's acceptable recyclables, a call to the the Boston recycling department revealed that they do not accept styrofoam packaging for recycling. Uggg.

It is easy to recycle the styrofoam packaging peanuts. Just bring them to a local shipping store (e.g. UPS, Mailboxes Etc.) and they will reuse them. And when it comes to the big styrofoam packaging chunks, clearly the smartest thing to do is to buy appliances, electronics, and computers secondhand so that you don't have to deal with packaging. But when you do buy things new, what do YOU do with the big packaging chunks? Have you figured out alternative uses for this packaging (e.g. crafting) or have you found an esoteric recycling option?

Image 1: Travis Brown's flickr photostream

Image 2: Amit Gupta's flickr photostream

Image 3: markopolo8309's flickr photostream

Image 4: magnusw's flickr photostream

Comments (17)

Unfortunately I usually just throw my out. I notice some companies have started using formed molds out of a pulp mixture that is recyclable in electronics at least.

That first picture makes me want to build a giant Styrofoam maze in my basement.

Buying second hand certainly doesn't guarantee that you're not going to get styrofoam packaging - Many of the items I purchase on eBay get wrapped and packed w/ styrofoam sheets or peanuts.

Fortunately, San Francisco accepts styrofoam for recycling:

http://www.sfrecycling.com/residential/garbage.php?t=r

I usually save and reuse it for stuff I sell on Ebay. That goes for peanuts and those "bags of air" as well. Sometimes I just have too much, so I will drop off a bag of peanuts at my local UPS store. Most of the air bags that I have gotten are recyclable, so I just pop them and throw them in the recycling bin.

I had a ton of foam peanuts and large boxes. I put a 'free' post on craigslist and they were gone within the hour.

I thought that first photo was giant sugar cubes (I thought I'd clicked over into the kitchn, but got lost).

That last photo makes me wonder if styrofoam is sound absorbent so I could start gluing it to my ceiling to deaden noise from the upstairs traffic (the family of billygoats who lives upstairs).

Where I live (Alexandria City, Va), neither foam nor plastic bags can be recycled in our recycling bins. I end up throwing it out; I typically use newspapers for packing.

Thankfully, though, it seems like a lot of companies (including, I believe, amazon.com) have got with the program and are using greener packing materials.

Here in Austin the city doesn't accept styrofoam for recycling. But a local plastics recycler, Cycled Plastics (http://www.cycledplastics.com/), does. They're open regular business hours, and accept clean styrofoam for recycling, as well as some other plastics. Drop off is simple and usually takes no more than a few minutes.

My city in the Sacramento Valley has started a program to recycle the styrofoam packaging. It is great. They compress it in a special machine and it can be moved on for reuse.

So, I take papers, cardboard, bottles, plastic and now styrofoam every couple of weeks to the big bins.

PS The by-product is that selling the recyclables helps keep a bit of control on our Solid Waste charges too.

David: If there are any in your area, Safeway and Walmart have a bin for recycling plastic bags.

i can't use up all the accumulated styrofoam this way, but come spring, i plant lots of flowerpots and windowboxes. peanuts and styrofoam at the bottom are great for drainage to prevent root rot, and don't contibute to the weight like broken terra cotta pieces do.

one of the furniture companies that my store does business with actually encourages the retailers to bring the cardboard and styrofoam back so they can recycle it.

A lot of "styrofoam" packing is now made with biodegradable material - witness EarthShell.

In addition, some bacteria can eat styrofoam, if we prepare it to their liking.

I use the paypal note field when I buy stuff on ebay and ask the seller to please use no packaging (often possible if I am buying books, etc.) or recyclable or biodegradable packaging like newspapers. Most will do that.

In my area supermarkets have bins for recycling plastic bags. I don't get plastic bags at the supermarket, but lots of stuff comes in plastic bags like some breads, so I save those and leave them in the supermarket bins.

DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME FOLKS.

Yes, the Cubist/Constructivist/Deathstar aesthetic of styrofoam packing forms is cool, and I've always thought that, stacked up high & spotlit in a Modernist all-white interior, the stuff would make for a great fake Louise Nevelson sculpture, not to mention that covering the walls & ceriling with a collage of used packing forms (as seen in the dressing room above) would be an effective--and handsome--way to create an acoustsically dead room in an otherwise noisy environment. Unfortunately, it's also a fast & effective way to kill your friends & family.

The styrofoam used for packaging (i.e., cool molded forms & peanuts)--is both fast-burning & incredibly toxic--I believe that massive amounts of cyanide gas are one of the byproducts of burning the stuff--which is why building codes require styrofoam to be isolated with a double layer of Gypsum Board when it's used as building insulation. The terrible fire at The Station nightclub during an appearance by Great White a few years ago was made far worse by clueless doofuses who had used regular styrofoam packaging on the ceiling as a cheap (and illegal) substitute for code-approved fire-retardent sound baffling. I'm all for using everyday materials in novel ways but not when they put lives at risk. This is a bad idea all around.
Magnaverde.

Here's an article from Argonne National Laboratory & the Department of Energy.
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:lcTG2Y3yNz4J:www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/eng99/eng99261.htm %22untreated polystyrene foam is dangerously flammable%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

anyone into stamping fabric or printmaking? Styrofoam makes an AMAZING template. Lots of it can be carved and used to apply a vast array of products. Give it a whirl. It's a great rainy day project. And don't forget to look through your kitchen. that electric knife you never use? totally great with the styrofoam.

I like your article here and I thought It odd that you would throw out the Styrofoam in your attic. I do just the opposite to re-purpose the Styrofoam and use it as insulation!

I just throw clean packing Styrofoam on top of the blown insulation in my attic and it keeps my house better insulated while keeping it out of the land fill! It's just like how a Styrofoam beer cooler stays cold for days with a bag of ice and a lid.

Quick question, in Boston where it's pretty cold have you noticed a change in your heating/cooling bills since you threw out the insulation?

Your readers might like my blog post on this topic.

http://we2point0.com/think-green/insulate-nest/