How to Recycle Styrofoam: A Guide for Industry Professionals
"Styrofoam" — properly expanded polystyrene, or EPS — is an excellent packaging and insulation material and an awkward waste stream. It protects products superbly precisely because it is mostly air, and that same property makes it expensive to store, transport, and landfill. This guide explains how industrial EPS recycling actually works: densification with a cold press machine, what happens to the blocks afterward, and the business case for doing it in-house. Compacted EPS blocks: the same foam, at a small fraction of its loose volume. Why EPS Is Difficult to Recycle The problem is economics, not chemistry. EPS is roughly 98% air, so a truckload of loose foam contains very little actual plastic by weight — transport and landfill gate fees are effectively paid on air. Loose foam also blows around collection sites, contaminates other recycling streams, and is refused by many material recovery facilities. Any practical recycling route therefore has to solve the volume pro...