Expanded Polystyrene Recycling on the Rise in the U.S.

14 December 2011

There has been a steady growth in the amount of expanded polystyrene (EPS) packaging being recycled in the U.S. since the 1990s, according to the recently published 2010 EPS Recycling Rate Report conducted by the Alliance of Foam Packaging Recyclers (AFPR).

The AFPR releases recycling rates every 2 years, and said that its latest figures showed a total EPS recycling increased to 71.3 million pounds (32,300 tonnes) in 2010.

According to the organisation, a total of 28% of all post-consumer and post-commercial EPS was recycled in 2010, an increase of 3.5 million pounds over the 19.5% recycling rate in 2008 - one of the highest recycling rates among all plastics products.

The AFPR said that the 2010 figures mark the highest post-consumer & post-commercial recycling rate for the industry since the inception of the recycling rate report in 1990, and illustrates that EPS recycling has reached a stable baseline of incremental growth.

One U.S. manufacturer of EPS, ACH Foam Technologies, said that it recycled around 4 million pounds (1800 tonnes) of EPS in 2010, and points out that the product is 98% air making this a very large volume of material.

To achieve this, the company said that it has has become actively involved in assisting companies with their recycling needs, and by working with the AFPR, which has put together information for packaging & OEM customers about how to set up their own recycling program.

Through this program, the AFPR said that it has assisted companies such as Ethan Allen, GM, Crate & Barrel, and NASA, as well as Canadian medical research company Sanofi pasteur to develop a successful collaborative EPS recycling program.

Since January 2008, sanofi pasteur has offered its U.S. customers a prepaid mail-back recycling program that works through its partnership with AFPR.The company's customers - physicians and healthcare providers - are provided with tape strips and a shipping label to return the EPS packaging.


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