Are they recyclable?

PDD

Hi Guys,

I was wondering if anyone knew wether styrofoam is recyclable? I know its the most god awful thing ever for putting in the bin but if its recyclable where can I bring it?

Also I have lots of old CD's and cases, does anyone know where does recycling of these? I know of companies in the UK and the US that do it but I dont know of anywhere in Ireland.

PDD

Archeron

As far as I know, small quatities of styrofoam just go in the bin, which is a pain! Still, its better than running along scraping if off a wall to make snow whch is what I used to do.

A few years ago, I was at an exhibition for waste management machnery (thats how exciting my life is!!) and there was a guy showing a machine that could turn waste sytrofoam into perfectly good roof tiles. The problem was that it took about 14 tonne of styrofoam to make any qty of slates, and it cost about 50k. Was a great idea though. Cant find any links to it , so I dont know if the idea is still going.

Sarsfield

Archeron wrote:

14 tonne of styrofoam

How much space would that take up uncompressed?

air

AFAIK, styrofoam is made from polystyrene and I think the consensus is that its not worth recycling given the transportation costs etc associated with it's low density.
I think it shoud just be phased out to be honest, it's a bit of a disaster environmentally.

Sarsfield

You can use small amounts of it as crocking for pot plants. Improves drainage and protects roots in cold weather apparently.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/basics/techniques/plant_container.shtml#drainage

Archeron

Sarsfield wrote:

You can use small amounts of it as crocking for pot plants. Improves drainage and protects roots in cold weather apparently.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/basics/techniques/plant_container.shtml#drainage

There's a use for everything if you look hard enough!