The problem isn't with the recycling of the foam. My company used to recycle all the foam we could get into an environmental building material. At first, we were inundated with foam that companies and municipalities needed to recycle. but when those sources realized we needed and relied on the foam they began charging us to the point that our product was no longer competitive and forced us out of business.
@@ryerye9019 Go and donate to a fund to buy this stuff... I love how you want to just make everything most costly and everyone more poor... must be nice to be rich like you.
"The company says it recycles 5% of the polystyrene foam used in Mexico City, but we were unable to independently verify that fact" Man, I really appreciate you guys saying that. 5 or 10% doesn't matter to me, but *accuracy/transparency does!*
@@iamanidiotbut5523 they got the numbers for how much material goes through the facility, but how easy do you think it is to get the "total polystyrene use in a day" number? it doesn't mean they're lying, it's just the data to say that the statement is true isn't (yet) available.
@@fckprc8149 quite confused on what you're saying here, where in my original message or my reply did i imply that recycling is the answer to all? please don't twist my words. what i'm saying is that as these waste have already been created, it'd be better that someone is working on recycling these materials than people dumping it to wasteland and polluting the planet. reusing them and recycling them is better dumping them after one don't you agree? of course it's best that we find a sustainable and environmental and, from point of view of most businesses, cheaper substitute material, but before that would happen, and god knows when that could happen, somebody somewhere have to somehow find a way to better utilize these materials
@@etszyeung I’m on your side there, it’s not gonna fix everything. It’s a start. It’ll take time for humanity to figure this stuff out. This is beautiful to me.
Let's be honest, the only reason why there aren't many companies in the recycling business world wide is because of the profit margins. It's always about money regardless of how much passion you have for the environment because you have to feed your family at the end of the day. Especially when there are no incentives to recycle like a huge tax break etc. Food containers are hard to recycle because they are contaminated and might need a good wash/sorting first which requires extra labor/personnel or equipment.
We went through all of this in the 70s and there were a few companies recycling polystyrene (it was used EVERYWHERE from fast food to school cafeterias). I remember them saying it was very recyclable, but we lacked the infrastructure to collect and transport the material. For a while, separate containers popped up just for polystyrene. I love that solution that Styro-Go implemented by densifying the material on site.
it's awesome that business insider makes these types of videos. Not only does it make money for them and their employees( insider employees) but it also promotes and is a good way to advertise things like these. I didn't know that you could recycle styrofoam before but now I do
"any environmental action that doesn't make economic sense isn't realistic." I like that, it's one of the reasons why some countries don't take any action, it's because it doesn't have a economic benefit for them
Agylix have refined their process to recreate the styrene monomer raw material which for them recovers more value than just producing fuel and takes the material even further around the arc of thecircular economy. In Wellington, New Zealand Poly Palace take it a step further and create the same products 100% recycled from waste EPS and XPS as other virgin manufacturers make from the raw expandable granule material, for application in the local construction market as Geofoam. Fun fact. Grind up Polystyrene with a cheese grater, put it in your espresso machine where the coffee goes and run steamy water through it like you are making a short black and that is the polystyrene manufacturing process on a small scale, similar temperatures and pressure. Our process is basically a very very large espresso machine at the local Resource Recovery Center. The 'cheese grater' is an end of life flail mill that used to crush the shite out of dirty sheep's wool. Now it processes waste polystyrene at the rate of 1m3 every 1-2 minutes.
I used to work in the quality control department of the 3rd biggest XPS producer in Europe. Judging from the small extruder used, i would guess that they dont have the production they claim in the video. Since i had to deal with regulations, i have to admit that virgin PS is way cheaper than the product which comes out of recycling due to difficulties in separating the materials from other plastic types, metals and most importantly paper. This is a process that can be automated in a certain extent hence it has high labor costs. Also, most of PS products are food containers and by regulation, recycled plastics are not intended to come in contact with food due to difficulties in regulating the contaminants from previous applications, storage etc. Maybe in mexico it is allowed but in Europe it is forbidden. These products can not be turned into food containers and thus creating low demand and high supply which in turns lowers the price to a level which virgin PS from petrochemical companies is a more economically viable solution.
It is really important to count _all_ of the costs that occur in recycling. The cost of the user's time is important. The cost of the user's space is important. If some consumer spends a minute rinsing out an expanded polystyrene cup weighing 5 grams, even at minimum wage, _just_ that component of the recycling cost is $0.25 for each cup, $50 per kilogram!
The problem with recycling is never about rather if the item can be recycled or not. The issue lays in the amount of extra energy and resources to recycle such item. In many cases, recycling certain item create more pollution.
some things yes , many things no , its just that with many things its cheaper to keep cutting it down and digging it up or the mining companies don't want the competition it will drop their bottom line Profits ! and that's all they care about and they are too powerful to stop Governments world wide cower to them
That's the big problem, you have to look at the total net energy usage of the whole process. If you expend more energy collecting, transporting, processing, and then using recycled material to make a new product, using energy and emitting carbon along the way at every step, are we really saving anything other than cutting down waste? We're just trading one type of pollution for another.
for every type of plastic, there should be equal number of recycling facilities and manufacturing plants, unfortunately we don't have those, so we produce more but recycle less.
There are many types of plastic But there are many many many many grades of plastics Hundreds of thousands if not millions It’s practically impossible to have a recycling facility for each of them Not to mention the nightmare of collecting and sorting them (which actually consumes a high amount of energy and will have a higher carbon footprint and a higher impact on the environment rather than just making new plastics and burning the used ones for fuel)
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. To really do something good for the planet we need to produce less. If not possible then reuse. Last thing we can do in terms of damage control is recycle. However, since the corporate world is build on growth and profit we can only hope for regulations that will force companies to use better materials etc.
If we ban the foam we will end up using paper instead and most people still probably won't recycle. Cleveland ohio has been taking the recycle bins to the dump along with normal waste bins for years because it costs less money to process it. So they use twice as many trucks to do the same thing. We need to fix this problem along with keeping plastic out of our waterways
The biggest problem with polystyrene is that it isn't really biodegradable. Throw away that paper, and fungus and bacteria will chow down on those plant fibers and it will be gone in 10 years. Chuck out the plastics, and they'll still be around, intact, 200+ years from now.
That sounds like a conspiracy theory to me. In the UK all the dumps have sections where different materials are put and they're very strict about it. Have you ever been to your local dump and seen the recyclables dumped in the general waste yourself? Might be just one of those things people say to justify why they don't spend a few extra seconds sorting their waste.
@@noire1001 yea its true, the local news has been doing a story about it for years and have spoken to the mayor along with the waste management officials.
We did something similar as a project in school. Dissolved HUGE amount of foam in some Acetone and baked out the acetone (and recovered it) to form a solid block of PS. Ground it up make pellets and molded them into something different. The new molding process didn't work well, but as a school project in 2 weeks it was pretty impressive. You can't master every piece of the cycle.
the foam densifier appears in this video is our brand called GREENMAX, we are also the end user of recycled EPS and EPE, would you like to recommand us the so we could buy that from them?
I work for the top packaging company in the UK and we barely ever sell polystyrene. What you see being used is a negligible fraction of all packaging. There is a Mycelium alternative that uses mushrooms to grow the packaging.
Yea... At least in Portugal it is pretty common to recycle Styrofoam. It goes with all plastics and cans in the "yellow container". Also plastic bags are recyclable here.
Is it processed locally, or does it go into a container and get shipped to another country where they ‘process’ it? Just because it’s collected doesn’t mean it’s actually recycled properly.
In fact, ages ago a company in the US started using lemonene to dissolve styrofoam so that it could be reused. The lemonene itself could also be reused. I don't know why this did not become widespread. You can see it in action. Just squeeze a piece of any citrus fruit and spray the lemonene on some styrofoam and it will start to dissolve.
@@Rahul-kz5fi I have. Dissolve a bunch of Styrofoam into gasoline. It turns into a goopy sticky mess that is almost impossible to put out with water...
"When you replace a product, I no longer consume plastic, but now I consume paper." Umm...that's literally the point. Paper is more easily recycled and is renewable. Either way, glad to see Business Insider out here pushing the age old propaganda that the consumers are to blame, not the companies that only put their products in single use plastics.
I think the point is that you are still using a product, and that product has to be dealt with after you throw it away. Hardly anything we use is recycled. Most of it--whether paper, plastic, wood, rubber, etc.-- is simply thrown into the landfills. There has to be a better way.
A foot ball field is roughly an acre of land, as well as a round length, on top of being something most people are familiar with in America. It's actually a pretty good reference point for the size of large objects, where someone might have a hard time visualizing raw measurements.
José, I really like your idea. If I were going to do it, I'd start small, like just one landfill, maybe even one about to be closed/buried, with local government that is friendly (not prone to burying people in fees, prohibitions, and limits). I'd negotiate a deal, and specifically target what pays most, like steel. Many landfills now have an area set aside for appliances, even if a lot slips past. But older landfills didn't even try, and they've got tons of steel, aluminum and copper (think appliance motors). There are machines that *shred* cars, then sort metal with giant magnets. I hope you take action!
My biggest problem with styrofoam is how avoidable they are...yet companies still use them. For example: electronics, applicants, furniture, etc can be protected by paper cushioning or cardboard honeycomb inside the package, yet they still use styrofoam. And eggs....why the hell do you need to make egg cartons from styrofoam?
That's because someone has painstakingly cleaned them out like they were doing with the clamshells full of food at the beginning when they were talking about the collection drives.
I'd read that mealworms will consume stryrofoam. The win/win would be if the consumption of these foam-fed creatures would then be safe. They are a delicacy in quite a few places, and a great source of protein.
That’s awesome I wish they would do that here in the states. It makes me sick thinking of all the styrofoam (polystyrene) that is going into landfills.😞
I HATE when restaurants use polystyrene foam and plastic containers for to go items, those containers leach toxic chemicals into hot foods. If customers could bring their own containers in when picking up food items that would be so great! Glass containers or bowls would be best in my opinion... I never thought to ask restaurants if I could do this, it's a good idea for less waste, I wonder if they'd do it if I did ask... 🤔
the foam densifier appears in this video is our brand called GREENMAX, we are also the end user of recycled EPS and EPE, would you like to recommand us the so we could buy that from them?
@@mikloscsuvar6097 Yup. We even have one of those EPS compactors too, so all our scrap material is heated and compacted into ingots all ready for the recyclers. We also accept scrap returns from our customers to be recycled. We have even sent shipments of this crap to that picture frame company, and they don't want it anymore. Our parking lot is filling up with tons upon tons of the material and it's free for anyone who wants to pick it up. The issue is nobody wants it. It's a pretty useless material- good for picture frames, indeed, and not much else.
@@fattymcbastard6536 I have heard that some fungii could be used instead of EPS in packaging and it is biodegradable. Most of my plastic waste are milk bottles. Some years ago milk was sold at the local market, but that business was finished.
@@mikloscsuvar6097 Sure. I'll concede that a box can be made from fungi, but is it a realistic replacement? Even assuming the density of the material is the same as the EPS product to be replaced, we would need 10,000 kg per day at my workplace. How huge of a mushroom farm would we need to grow all the material to make our boxes?
You got to the heart of the issue in the video. The biggest problem with recycling polystyrene isn't the recycling part, it's the fact that the vast majority of recycling facilities won't even take the stuff... In the UK, there appear to be very few locations that will allow you to recycle polystyrene. I think it's something to do with it being high volume, but low mass... The manufacturer of it don't care, and the processes that use it don't care, because it's marked as recyclable, and so therefore they are being green by using it.
This is why we need more hemp. Hemp derived products were used for years before making THC illegal. Hemp rope is some of the strongest rope easily made.
I manufacture biodiesel from waste vegetable oil and I take waste styrofoam and dissolve it nm in my biodiesel, it props up my volumes and reduces my costs. But most importantly, it reduced waste of a material not commonly recycled. It's a good feeling to be able to reduce the impact on the environmental 😊
@@herbertant4096 well, they use their oil until just before the food starts tasting like old, burnt oil but it's still good for biodiesel. It's better than it going into landfills and down the drain into water ways.
I mean, it's still highly carcinogenic, still emits carbon dioxide, and still isn't much better than burning it in a landfill, but it is helping you go further on a tank of vegetable oil!
@@traviskitteh all harmful emissions from a vehicle such as carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, particulates, hydrocarbons are less with the use of biodiesel compared to petroleum diesel. But yes, it's not 100% clean just like any energy wouldn't be (other than photosynthesise of non-farmed/naturally occurring plants). Further to the above, carbon emissions for overall extraction is far, far less with biodiesel when compared to petroleum diesel and sulphur is pretty much zero. It's the only alternative fuel approved against the clean airs act. Edit: And when I say biodiesel, I mean vegetable oil and styrene blend (diesel does contain a certain amount of styrene naturally but now we stunt have to harm ecosystems to get more) It's a small contribution but it's a start. We should all do our best to curb our effects on the environment 😊
recycling is a lure, dangled in front of us, delaying public outcry at the consequences while big business makes its money. This stuff is disseminated everywhere, without hope of even partially collecting it back. Better to cease producing it. The biodisel guys are safe, cooking oil is and will be in use for millenia
great they're doing this, we still need to STOP using plastic/styro single use items. "They try to make them into cutlery and cups..." yeesh, nothing learned. Great frames though
In my opinion, we need to make use of the products we have. What we need to do is stop *producing* new plastics and reuse and recycle what we've already made until we can't reuse and recycle them anymore, while also focusing on producing cleaner and more environmentally friendly resources.
Making them into cutlery and cups is way better than making them into frames. You want the recycling process to be a loop not a one way ticket. If we can keep recycling the same cups and bowls and make them new we can eliminate most of the environmental impact
@@tomislav5689 Unfortunately not everything can be made from metal though. Plastic dose play a useful role some areas where the alternatives don't work for sanitary or safety reasons. Like electrical parts, such as switches. wall outlets. etc. That can't be completely made of something that is conductive to electricity like metal. Some single use plastics do also fall in that category for personal protection. Like disposable gloves. condoms. to name two.
I remember in the 90s when companies swore you could easily recycle that shit, turns out they just shipped it to China. Was curious why, today, I can't recycle it where I live when we use to be able to. Found out we ran out of places to export it to.
Hi Jessie, hte foam densifier appears in this video is our brand called GREENMAX, we are also the end user of hat, would you like to recommand us the recycling center so we could buy that from them?
Yes, exactly. Plastics, because they are polymers, do not act like metals when you heat them up. Since they don't return to their chemical precursors in that state, recycled plastic is lower quality, more expensive, and more difficult to work with than virgin material. Even making it cost-competitive does not fix those other problems. This method of heating up and crushing the air out of polystyrene foam is clearly not viable as a general method to deal with the plastic problem if it can't readily be turned into things that we need, like how they're "working" on making plates and utensils. If melting plastics down to recover the materials was an actual possibility, why don't we see it commonly done with almost any of the plastics we use in our day-to-day lives? Nobody's complaining about a "scrap metal crisis", because metal can ACTUALLY be recycled into usable raw materials. It's pretty clear to me that Business Insider has an agenda with making this video. They show a tiny operation running a flawed recycling process as proof that the system is working when it clearly isn't, which we can see by the amount of plastic waste polluting the world. Then, at the end, use this as justification for why we shouldn't ban the use of single-use plastics. Ah yes, why stop a problem at its source when society can spend millions of dollars every year cleaning up the mess? Genius! These are the exact same things the plastics industry has always done in order to pretend that its product is sustainable, which it isn't and never was. Even if our current recycling technology could actually deal with the problem, it's unpreventable that some percentage of what we use will end up in the environment. This is simply reality -- not everything can be collected, and sometimes things get lost. The more we manufacture, the more items will make their way into nature. This is how you get our current predicament of microplastics covering literally all of the earth's surface, ending up in every part of the food chain -- the food chain that WE rely on to sustain us. We have no idea what their effects on our bodies will be, and it's recently been found that they can end up crossing the blood-brain barrier. We could be risking our own health just to enrich the plastics industry. It's reduce, reuse, recycle -- in that order. Single-use plastics have to be completely eliminated wherever possible, and it should be replaced by a recyclable/biodegradable alternative ONLY when there is no feasible alternative. We don't have a sustainable plastic yet, don't let these videos convince you otherwise.
@@syedtahbibshams "We should do a thing." "How." "You do it."' Your opinion is worth less than the fraction of a cent worth of electricity it took for you to type it.
Everything made should have a whole of live plan which includes a recycling and an associated recycling industry. The companies that produce the products should be required to have the plan and how it is to be recycled. If it can't be recycled then its use should be scrutinized.
It'll be hard for corporation to take this initiative on their own, most effective is to make this into law. Make it a requirement for the entire product lifecycle to be considered. But the administrative work coming from monitoring this would be crazy too..
See this is the type of shit people who don’t understand economics THINK is a good idea. If it made economic sense to recycle we would be doing it more often already. Recycling most products costs more than making new ones.
4:10 This alone made me subscribe to you. The fact that you bothered to inform the audience that this information maybe not true, even though most similar channels would have presented it as pure fact.
it was created to solve the litter and pollution problem. it was meant to dissolve in direct sunlight. the problem is, they never really told the cities that, so they buried them in landfills, which makes it last almost forever, creating a new environmental problem.
The best, quickest and most direct way to dispose of all plastic and paper (newspaper, cardboard, etc.) is to burn it close to where it is produced. This plastic and paper is free fuel. It burns. You use the heat to generate electricity. It is done in New York City, in my town in Massachusetts and hundreds of other places all over the world. The global leader in this super-efficient process is Sweden. So you do three things by converting waste to energy - you get rid of the waste, you avoid the need for future landfills and you get the highest value energy source of all, which is electricity. Recycling is an expensive and inefficient myth.
What I've noticed is places that don't use styrofoam to hold my take-out meal simply use normal plastic containers that look much like tupperware but are thinner. I assume these are easier to recycle. What would be ideal is if we could come up with a material that will simply biodegrade after a few months of exposure to high humidity. So, you could store them in a dry place, use them to hold food and they'll be durable enough to hold that food for a few weeks (which is way more than you'd need if we're talking about single-use) and then bury them in a landfill and they degrade in less than a year.
They make pressed paper containers like that which can be composted, unfortunatly landfills are anaerobic environments where nothing composts, so they need to go in a home compost bin or curbside yard waste bin.
This is wonderful. Now I can purchase picture frames free from any guilt. I will put as many as I can into every room of my house. I have had many sleepless nights worrying about my frames. Now the world will be a better place.
Yes but it’s still worth it environmentally, we can generate electricity more environmentally but there’s nothing to make plastic on landfill or environment safer
This stuff is disseminated everywhere, collected back mixed with other waste and is too frail and lightweight to sort out industrially. 30% of landfills? We are too eco-poor to use it, are we not?
"In 2015, Stanford University scientists discovered that mealworms could be employed to break down Styrofoam (polystyrene) waste. The insects eat the material and break it down through digestion. Since then, the team has found that the worms do not absorb the toxic substance in the foam (hexabromocyclododecane, aka HBCD) into their bodies. Meaning, the bugs are safe to eat! They can be used to help with the problem of Styrofoam waste and then livestock feed."
while that sounds cool in a lab, realistically the number of worms required to recycled any reasonable amount of foam would be far to high for practical use.
When I was a child everything came in brown paper bags. We never stop to think what the downside is of our so-called "progress". As long as it helps "make" money anything is acceptable.
The only issue with everyone saying use paper is that, that will create its own problems. If the entire world switched from plastic packaging and bags for groceries etc at once we would need a lot more wood to cope. The UK just stopped supplying plastic bags, so now you have to re-use your own, or buy 'bags for life' that are material.
I am collecting EPS so that once I manage to change my house roof, I will have over 30 cubic meters of it, so that I can use it as isolation, i will have to shred it. To top it of so that it would stay in place i will have to use some sort of other material. All new houses should be insulated that say, no excess eps would be left
I work in waste management, in fact today I was just processing data I collected this summer, we recycle polystyrene so I don't have waste data on it but off the top of my head if we put all the styrofoam in the landfill it would probably be 2-4%
Great to see someone is recycling some of it but this material really needs to be banned. Is there anything it’s used for that couldn’t be replaced by cardboard or something else more sustainable? Certainly polystyrene plates/cups/food containers could all be replaced by a more sustainable material. Interested to hear of any examples where it can’t be easily replaced…
Living in the desert southwest USA I often wonder if it's environmentally beneficial to rinse and clean items in preparation for recycling. It probably isn't, but I do it anyway.
EPS or expanded polystyrene foam is easy to recycle and has been reused so much that is even is cradle to cradle certified! Here in the Netherlands we use and reuse the material for decades, even to build energy-neutral houses from it. Personally, I have also designed several products and even boats with it. It is a great material to use and reuse.
I'VE BEEN SEEING POST EVERYWHERE ABOUT FOREX TRADING AND CRYPTO CURRENCY, A LOT OF PEOPLE KEEP SAYING THINGS ABOUT THIS TRADING PLATFORMS PLEASE CAN SOMEONE LINK ME TO SOMEBODY WHO CAN PUT ME THROUGH..?
Wow l'm just shock someone mentioned expert Mrs Olivera Jane okhumalo, I thought I'm the only one trading with her, She helped me recover what i lost trying to trade my self.
The styrofoam could be better used as a poor man's insulation material instead further processing into other products like photo frames which can be directly made and not through a convoluted process of heating and extruding waste material
@@justinnee1572 Use water soluble starch packing peanuts. A lot of places, including where I work, already do. You can then snack on the flavorless packing peanuts your 2 inch rubber ball came in ✌
Styrofoam (which is a trademark) and similar polystyrene gas cell based foam products can be degassed when exposed to acetone gas or similar solvents with a low boiling point. When the polystyrene cell structure is softened by the acetone gas, it collapses and liquidizes. Later in the process, the acetone gas and the gas that was contained within the foam cells can be evacuated from the polystyrene by vacuum treatment and the acetone separated from the cell gasses by compression to atmospheric pressure and cooling. The result is polystyrene in a more or less pristine form. Although it cannot be used in production of new foam products, polystyrene is used as solid plastic in many products. Everybody in the plastic industry knows about this method or variants of it.
You don’t think nuclear weapons, blister agents, weaponized anthrax, anime, etc are pretty bad? Rather go after the basic material of society that provide you with the highest quality of living in human history...
It's same as in Finland heights are often referred as x times of height of stadium tower (I have no idea it's height). But those reporters usually live near it so they expect that everyone knows it.
The images of a guy handing another guy 3 or 4 small plastic trays at a time to put into a shreder while another watches really doesn't scream industrial volumes
We see a lot of labour and other parameters need to be set. So wel adding this together the producer Dupont should pay as Other producers for the costs of getting it out into the system, researching how to recycle economicaly and close the cycle... watched closely by gouvernements and international and local civil action groups
Yes, kind of how we pay a carbon tax on gas and other fuels. I agree! But at the same time we know that that would just equal the consumer (us) paying a ridiculous price in the end.
0:50 BIG! Correction: Polystyrene was discovered in 1839 by Eduard Simon, from the resin of the Oriental sweetgum tree. 0:36 Swedish inventor Carl Munters patented the process of Expended Polystyrene around 1920 (Styrofoam) Dow bought the rights to Munters’s method 1941.
You can shred styrofoam into the small bits. Mix it with concrete and you get aircrete. This is really interesting material, you can use it to isolate or build floors out of it. Even one story sheds and other applications are possible.
@@skeptical1465 the foam densifier appears in this video is our brand called GREENMAX, we are also the end user of recycled EPS and EPE, would you like to recommand us the so we could buy that from them?
I'm interested in starting a company that shreds and coats styrofoam and once recycled cardboard in natural sources of potassium, nitrogen and phosphorus. To rid the planet of styrofoam and redistribute it as recycled soil and organic fertilizer once mixed with sand. What machine are they using to grind the styrofoam?
"To rid the planet of styrofoam and redistribute it as recycled soil and organic fertilizer once mixed with sand" Why not mix it with cement to make insulated load bearing homes for people so we don't need to depop them like we're shutting down the shipping to do right now?
Start your business yo. Idk anything about chemicals but seeing people create small businesses is really awesome. If we all work together we can make great change!
The solution is very simple- when your unpack something you simply ship back the styrofoam back to the shipping company when the shipping / producers receive 1 million tons of it they will simply find a way to make it recyclable = if We don’t say anything They won’t do anything.
I think one of the most important steps in a recycling process is to try and take a single use or disposable product and and recycle it into something with a far longer design life. Like a photo frame that will hold that photo for 20-30 years or longer. That's part of the reason why I think cycling waste material into construction materials that would exist within a building for 40-50 years or longer. Try and give that material the fewest possible opportunities to end up in a landfill. In doing so, sequester it as long as we can, where it is doing minimal harm until we come up with an even better solution to deal with it.
4:15 Slowly putting in wee chunks of polystyrene into the chipper when it should be a bulldozer pushing it into a way bigger hopper. Then they would get closer to 5% recycling.
instead of making Styrofoam illegal, couldn't we make it illegal to make these plastics from anything besides recycled materials? Attack it from the other end.
Our local recycler recently stopped taking styrofoam. I imagine the volume per pound makes transporting it very expensive. Every waste collection company would need to “densify” it before transporting it.
@@greeleyestateslove it's not about weight but the volume of the Styrofoam. Styrofoam is lightweight but occupies alot of space, so if uncompressed it's not worth to transport.
Near time-stamp 5:26, the narrator says that Colorado has banned single use plastics. Well, I live in Denver, the capital city of Colorado. You can buy Styrofoam (polystyrene) cups at any grocery store in Denver. I know, because I stocked the shelves at a "Save-a-Lot" grocery store untill may 30, 2022 and I myself put packages of polystyrene cups on the shelf for customers to buy less than week ago I purchased a cup of horchata from a food truck and it came in a white Styrofoam cup. The government can pass whatever law it likes, but people keep doing whatever is easiest to do. If there are trash bins, but no recycling bins, then people won't recycle. If buying biodegradable cups is more expensive than polystyrene cups, then people will continue to buy polystyrene cups.
Seems like the best use for used styrofoam would be for them to clean and shred it, then use it as blow in insulation. No need to worry about incompatible forms or different compositions that way. Could also put them into appropriately sized/shaped bags to fit into stud walls so as to not be so messy at renovation time.
The problem isn't with the recycling of the foam. My company used to recycle all the foam we could get into an environmental building material. At first, we were inundated with foam that companies and municipalities needed to recycle. but when those sources realized we needed and relied on the foam they began charging us to the point that our product was no longer competitive and forced us out of business.
That’s really sad
@@ebubeawachie its sad you believe it
The cost of dumping it was lower than sending it to a recycling facility. That's a failure of public policy.
@@ryerye9019 We were even paying the freight to have it delivered to our facility. They saw it as an unexpected revenue stream.
@@ryerye9019 Go and donate to a fund to buy this stuff... I love how you want to just make everything most costly and everyone more poor... must be nice to be rich like you.
"The company says it recycles 5% of the polystyrene foam used in Mexico City, but we were unable to independently verify that fact" Man, I really appreciate you guys saying that. 5 or 10% doesn't matter to me, but *accuracy/transparency does!*
It means they don’t believe them
@@iamanidiotbut5523 No, it means that they can't verify or disprove that claim due to lack of data.
@@iamanidiotbut5523 they got the numbers for how much material goes through the facility, but how easy do you think it is to get the "total polystyrene use in a day" number? it doesn't mean they're lying, it's just the data to say that the statement is true isn't (yet) available.
You heard already about PLASMA TORCH for all wast !! No more recycling ! Go to utube !
@No Touchy how's the search for a brain going, McCarthy
I hope this man’s recycling business grows larger and larger each day, it is amazing to see the effort he put into making the planet a better place
4:45 even if he dosnt provides masks for his people ..?
Its very inefficiant like it is now.
You belief that recycle is the answer too all? Any idea of the energy that is spend on it and in how many cases its even worse for the environment?
@@fckprc8149 quite confused on what you're saying here, where in my original message or my reply did i imply that recycling is the answer to all? please don't twist my words.
what i'm saying is that as these waste have already been created, it'd be better that someone is working on recycling these materials than people dumping it to wasteland and polluting the planet. reusing them and recycling them is better dumping them after one don't you agree?
of course it's best that we find a sustainable and environmental and, from point of view of most businesses, cheaper substitute material, but before that would happen, and god knows when that could happen, somebody somewhere have to somehow find a way to better utilize these materials
@@etszyeung I’m on your side there, it’s not gonna fix everything.
It’s a start. It’ll take time for humanity to figure this stuff out.
This is beautiful to me.
Let's be honest, the only reason why there aren't many companies in the recycling business world wide is because of the profit margins. It's always about money regardless of how much passion you have for the environment because you have to feed your family at the end of the day. Especially when there are no incentives to recycle like a huge tax break etc. Food containers are hard to recycle because they are contaminated and might need a good wash/sorting first which requires extra labor/personnel or equipment.
If people grew their own food instead of buying packaged garbage it would help
Dupont - if you make styrofoam- make a payment to support businesses like this.
Would you start a Business that didn't make money ?
@@spiderbrandt4066 you'd need to be backed by someone with deep pockets who does it in order to get a tax break
It should be illegal for Dupont to make it, then we wouldn't have the problem in the first place.
We went through all of this in the 70s and there were a few companies recycling polystyrene (it was used EVERYWHERE from fast food to school cafeterias). I remember them saying it was very recyclable, but we lacked the infrastructure to collect and transport the material. For a while, separate containers popped up just for polystyrene. I love that solution that Styro-Go implemented by densifying the material on site.
It’s not worth the gasoline to go recycle.
it's awesome that business insider makes these types of videos. Not only does it make money for them and their employees( insider employees) but it also promotes and is a good way to advertise things like these. I didn't know that you could recycle styrofoam before but now I do
Agreed! 👏
It’s interesting AF too.
You can make Napalm out of it.
Same.
Napalm would sell faster...lol
"any environmental action that doesn't make economic sense isn't realistic." I like that, it's one of the reasons why some countries don't take any action, it's because it doesn't have a economic benefit for them
Yup, and they never think of the bottom line. There's no economy at all when nobody can survive living in what we created
But when I buy fast food online, they gave me paper cups for my drinks? Where is styrofoam?
@@fynkozari9271 It isn't about online sellers but about *street vendors* & local fast food chains
Yup...with the exception of fission power. That's just people being scared for no reason.
If disposal are costly why not just impose tax on the production companies as it's already government responsibility to waste management?
We have a company in Oregon called agylix that turns it into diesel
Aaahhh... Classic American...either you shoot it or turn it into fuel for cars
@@pratiknazareth3217 Merica 🇺🇸
@@pratiknazareth3217 better than nothing
Agylix have refined their process to recreate the styrene monomer raw material which for them recovers more value than just producing fuel and takes the material even further around the arc of thecircular economy. In Wellington, New Zealand Poly Palace take it a step further and create the same products 100% recycled from waste EPS and XPS as other virgin manufacturers make from the raw expandable granule material, for application in the local construction market as Geofoam.
Fun fact. Grind up Polystyrene with a cheese grater, put it in your espresso machine where the coffee goes and run steamy water through it like you are making a short black and that is the polystyrene manufacturing process on a small scale, similar temperatures and pressure. Our process is basically a very very large espresso machine at the local Resource Recovery Center. The 'cheese grater' is an end of life flail mill that used to crush the shite out of dirty sheep's wool. Now it processes waste polystyrene at the rate of 1m3 every 1-2 minutes.
@@richardmoore7367 I didn't know that. Thanks for the info.
I used to work in the quality control department of the 3rd biggest XPS producer in Europe. Judging from the small extruder used, i would guess that they dont have the production they claim in the video. Since i had to deal with regulations, i have to admit that virgin PS is way cheaper than the product which comes out of recycling due to difficulties in separating the materials from other plastic types, metals and most importantly paper. This is a process that can be automated in a certain extent hence it has high labor costs. Also, most of PS products are food containers and by regulation, recycled plastics are not intended to come in contact with food due to difficulties in regulating the contaminants from previous applications, storage etc. Maybe in mexico it is allowed but in Europe it is forbidden. These products can not be turned into food containers and thus creating low demand and high supply which in turns lowers the price to a level which virgin PS from petrochemical companies is a more economically viable solution.
It is really important to count _all_ of the costs that occur in recycling. The cost of the user's time is important. The cost of the user's space is important. If some consumer spends a minute rinsing out an expanded polystyrene cup weighing 5 grams, even at minimum wage, _just_ that component of the recycling cost is $0.25 for each cup, $50 per kilogram!
The problem with recycling is never about rather if the item can be recycled or not. The issue lays in the amount of extra energy and resources to recycle such item. In many cases, recycling certain item create more pollution.
some things yes , many things no , its just that with many things its cheaper to keep cutting it down and digging it up
or the mining companies don't want the competition it will drop their bottom line Profits ! and that's all they care about and they are too powerful to stop
Governments world wide cower to them
And economics
Agreed. we need to stop the need to recycle in the first place. reuse vs recycle
and people bothering to deliver it at the stations instead of throwing it out the car window etc
That's the big problem, you have to look at the total net energy usage of the whole process. If you expend more energy collecting, transporting, processing, and then using recycled material to make a new product, using energy and emitting carbon along the way at every step, are we really saving anything other than cutting down waste? We're just trading one type of pollution for another.
for every type of plastic, there should be equal number of recycling facilities and manufacturing plants, unfortunately we don't have those, so we produce more but recycle less.
Yeah bc they don’t give a shit they just care about money and production
There are many types of plastic
But there are many many many many grades of plastics
Hundreds of thousands if not millions
It’s practically impossible to have a recycling facility for each of them
Not to mention the nightmare of collecting and sorting them (which actually consumes a high amount of energy and will have a higher carbon footprint and a higher impact on the environment rather than just making new plastics and burning the used ones for fuel)
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.
To really do something good for the planet we need to produce less. If not possible then reuse. Last thing we can do in terms of damage control is recycle. However, since the corporate world is build on growth and profit we can only hope for regulations that will force companies to use better materials etc.
@@IamYuto what are some of the “better materials”?
If recycling give profit, people will actually do it.
Fantastic to see a positive story from Mexico. Those guys have the right idea.
Usually when you hear about Mexico you hear about cartel -violence and corruption
@@JV-ll1cu To be fair if I had technicals driving down my pueblo firing off at police every other friday I'd probably be most concerned with that too.
Seems alot more energy intensive than just using acetone to put it back in its original form without contaminants.
If we ban the foam we will end up using paper instead and most people still probably won't recycle. Cleveland ohio has been taking the recycle bins to the dump along with normal waste bins for years because it costs less money to process it. So they use twice as many trucks to do the same thing. We need to fix this problem along with keeping plastic out of our waterways
The biggest problem with polystyrene is that it isn't really biodegradable. Throw away that paper, and fungus and bacteria will chow down on those plant fibers and it will be gone in 10 years. Chuck out the plastics, and they'll still be around, intact, 200+ years from now.
That sounds like a conspiracy theory to me. In the UK all the dumps have sections where different materials are put and they're very strict about it. Have you ever been to your local dump and seen the recyclables dumped in the general waste yourself? Might be just one of those things people say to justify why they don't spend a few extra seconds sorting their waste.
@@noire1001 yea its true, the local news has been doing a story about it for years and have spoken to the mayor along with the waste management officials.
We did something similar as a project in school. Dissolved HUGE amount of foam in some Acetone and baked out the acetone (and recovered it) to form a solid block of PS. Ground it up make pellets and molded them into something different. The new molding process didn't work well, but as a school project in 2 weeks it was pretty impressive. You can't master every piece of the cycle.
Very interesting
Nice you use toxic volatile substance to recycle. What happens with the acetone that is spent. Acetone as dangerous and volatile.
You could dissolve this plastic using lemon juice
@@nealthomson9505 Dissolve styrofoam in lemon juice? I find that hard to believe...
@@joshjosh575 Distill it off. We had almost 100% recovery of the acetone.
"enough to fill up 700 Empire State buildings every year" can you get more American than that
Cmon man, it’s the land of gluttony and waste…..now THATS america.
@@deplorablelibertarian Also I think by "we" he meant just the US alone, because I doubt we only make that much Styrofoam in the world.
thousands dying of a disease because people are refusing the vax for "freedom"?
@@livewellwitheds6885 damn right brother those vaccines spread the virus
How many twin towers would that fill?
Here in Poland old polystyrene foam boards are grinded and the bubbles are used to make new styrofoam boards.
Poland sounds like paradise
So you don’t do the spirit level bubbles anymore.
Nice
Here in Arizona US we the same thing
the foam densifier appears in this video is our brand called GREENMAX, we are also the end user of recycled EPS and EPE, would you like to recommand us the so we could buy that from them?
I work for the top packaging company in the UK and we barely ever sell polystyrene. What you see being used is a negligible fraction of all packaging.
There is a Mycelium alternative that uses mushrooms to grow the packaging.
when mcdonnalds bigmac box has more nutrition than the bigmac!
Its really nice how they communicate what they do in a non agressive way. They actually do something really nice instead of clapping around.
Only some good channels like this give this type of awareness for the future generations
yeah this is the future generations’ problem now lolmao
Yea... At least in Portugal it is pretty common to recycle Styrofoam. It goes with all plastics and cans in the "yellow container". Also plastic bags are recyclable here.
Is it processed locally, or does it go into a container and get shipped to another country where they ‘process’ it?
Just because it’s collected doesn’t mean it’s actually recycled properly.
@@matthewlewis5631 Portugal ships plastic to be processed, which means it most likely ends up in land fills in Asian and even Ocean. 🙁
Only 10-20% of plastic that goes in the recycling bin is actually recycled. The vast majority of plastic cannot be recycled.
Yea good job sending it somewhere else.
In fact, ages ago a company in the US started using lemonene to dissolve styrofoam so that it could be reused. The lemonene itself could also be reused. I don't know why this did not become widespread. You can see it in action. Just squeeze a piece of any citrus fruit and spray the lemonene on some styrofoam and it will start to dissolve.
You can make Napalm out of it too.
@@printingwithlue4310 use it
@@Rahul-kz5fi I have. Dissolve a bunch of Styrofoam into gasoline. It turns into a goopy sticky mess that is almost impossible to put out with water...
Foam+gas=napalm
@@printingwithlue4310 It's not napalm, its a vaguely napalm like substance.
Great work Mexico! Show the world what you’re made of! 💪🏻
"When you replace a product, I no longer consume plastic, but now I consume paper."
Umm...that's literally the point. Paper is more easily recycled and is renewable.
Either way, glad to see Business Insider out here pushing the age old propaganda that the consumers are to blame, not the companies that only put their products in single use plastics.
I think the point is that you are still using a product, and that product has to be dealt with after you throw it away. Hardly anything we use is recycled. Most of it--whether paper, plastic, wood, rubber, etc.-- is simply thrown into the landfills. There has to be a better way.
Styrofoam has a whole isle in Australian supermarkets called "Bread."
Whaat
😂
Ahh yes, the Empire State Building unit of measurements, it’s maybe even as good as the football stadium unit
A foot ball field is roughly an acre of land, as well as a round length, on top of being something most people are familiar with in America. It's actually a pretty good reference point for the size of large objects, where someone might have a hard time visualizing raw measurements.
For non-American, no idea how big they are
@Just to suffer let's see... 300 feet should be 90 meters. Yes, 90 meters is very tall
I constantly have that thought that if we found ways to effectively reuse materials in our landfills we would start emptying them.
land fills will be the mines of the future ,once we have cut down and dug everything else up
sad but true
@@sprintershepherd4359 well there are a lot of materials that can be reused so i would agree.
That, I hope is the main Plan.
José, I really like your idea. If I were going to do it, I'd start small, like just one landfill, maybe even one about to be closed/buried, with local government that is friendly (not prone to burying people in fees, prohibitions, and limits). I'd negotiate a deal, and specifically target what pays most, like steel. Many landfills now have an area set aside for appliances, even if a lot slips past. But older landfills didn't even try, and they've got tons of steel, aluminum and copper (think appliance motors). There are machines that *shred* cars, then sort metal with giant magnets. I hope you take action!
@@John.Flower.Productions who said they were worried about landfill space running out?
props for the note "we were unable to confirm that"
I was wondering about this... makes sense that it's recyclable. Wish this would become more mainstream.
My biggest problem with styrofoam is how avoidable they are...yet companies still use them. For example: electronics, applicants, furniture, etc can be protected by paper cushioning or cardboard honeycomb inside the package, yet they still use styrofoam. And eggs....why the hell do you need to make egg cartons from styrofoam?
In the uk the eggs are in plastic same thing but worse lol
@@Anmelve In France eggs are in cardboard boxes.
@@milhooz not in england
@@Anmelve Yes but why not? :D Cardboard is enough, no need to use precious and limited oil to protect eggs
@@milhooz i dunno
Those polystyrene bowls looked brand new and clean
That's because someone has painstakingly cleaned them out like they were doing with the clamshells full of food at the beginning when they were talking about the collection drives.
Yeh I bought them for my dads baptism but then my cousin said she wanted plates not bowls so I had to throw them all away
@@Bas_Lightyear tell her to bring her own plate 😂
Reuse > recycle, why don't they simply sell them back after cleaning?
It is only the tops of the clamshell, not the part in direct contact with food.
Plastics are cheap... Biodegradables are expensive... That is why plastics are everywhere....
I'd read that mealworms will consume stryrofoam. The win/win would be if the consumption of these foam-fed creatures would then be safe. They are a delicacy in quite a few places, and a great source of protein.
I’m actually a dietician for mealworms and I regularly advise them not to eat plastics as they may be unsafe.
@@slothmarathonpromotions2470 You've got a tough job. They never listen, do they?
That’s awesome I wish they would do that here in the states. It makes me sick thinking of all the styrofoam (polystyrene) that is going into landfills.😞
but we still use them and cant stop cuz on how useful the properties are for storing food and reduced heat loss, we use them everywhere
If the markets and restaurants let you bring your own containers then there would be less need for single use items.
I HATE when restaurants use polystyrene foam and plastic containers for to go items, those containers leach toxic chemicals into hot foods. If customers could bring their own containers in when picking up food items that would be so great! Glass containers or bowls would be best in my opinion... I never thought to ask restaurants if I could do this, it's a good idea for less waste, I wonder if they'd do it if I did ask... 🤔
@@veemartini5374 you sound like a crazy person
@@iair-conditiontheoutsideai3076 - Then, That means, anyone with an idea of doing something different, is "Crazy" to you? Sad!
@@robertweekley5926 you've proved to be just as crazy
But thats how i get styrofoam to make stuff
I got this recommended while working for a styrofoam recycling company !
the foam densifier appears in this video is our brand called GREENMAX, we are also the end user of recycled EPS and EPE, would you like to recommand us the so we could buy that from them?
6 tons per day? That is a heck of a lot of plastic foam.
Not even a drop in the bucket though. I work in a _small_ EPS facility and our production is double that.
@@fattymcbastard6536 So you kill the Earth twice as fast as they save. 😩
@@mikloscsuvar6097 Yup. We even have one of those EPS compactors too, so all our scrap material is heated and compacted into ingots all ready for the recyclers. We also accept scrap returns from our customers to be recycled. We have even sent shipments of this crap to that picture frame company, and they don't want it anymore. Our parking lot is filling up with tons upon tons of the material and it's free for anyone who wants to pick it up. The issue is nobody wants it. It's a pretty useless material- good for picture frames, indeed, and not much else.
@@fattymcbastard6536 I have heard that some fungii could be used instead of EPS in packaging and it is biodegradable.
Most of my plastic waste are milk bottles. Some years ago milk was sold at the local market, but that business was finished.
@@mikloscsuvar6097
Sure. I'll concede that a box can be made from fungi, but is it a realistic replacement? Even assuming the density of the material is the same as the EPS product to be replaced, we would need 10,000 kg per day at my workplace. How huge of a mushroom farm would we need to grow all the material to make our boxes?
You got to the heart of the issue in the video. The biggest problem with recycling polystyrene isn't the recycling part, it's the fact that the vast majority of recycling facilities won't even take the stuff...
In the UK, there appear to be very few locations that will allow you to recycle polystyrene. I think it's something to do with it being high volume, but low mass...
The manufacturer of it don't care, and the processes that use it don't care, because it's marked as recyclable, and so therefore they are being green by using it.
This is why we need more hemp. Hemp derived products were used for years before making THC illegal. Hemp rope is some of the strongest rope easily made.
I manufacture biodiesel from waste vegetable oil and I take waste styrofoam and dissolve it nm in my biodiesel, it props up my volumes and reduces my costs. But most importantly, it reduced waste of a material not commonly recycled. It's a good feeling to be able to reduce the impact on the environmental 😊
Ahh yes, a heated used vegetable oil, probably got it from restaurant that doesn't want to use their oil repeatedly
@@herbertant4096 well, they use their oil until just before the food starts tasting like old, burnt oil but it's still good for biodiesel. It's better than it going into landfills and down the drain into water ways.
I mean, it's still highly carcinogenic, still emits carbon dioxide, and still isn't much better than burning it in a landfill, but it is helping you go further on a tank of vegetable oil!
@@traviskitteh all harmful emissions from a vehicle such as carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, particulates, hydrocarbons are less with the use of biodiesel compared to petroleum diesel. But yes, it's not 100% clean just like any energy wouldn't be (other than photosynthesise of non-farmed/naturally occurring plants).
Further to the above, carbon emissions for overall extraction is far, far less with biodiesel when compared to petroleum diesel and sulphur is pretty much zero. It's the only alternative fuel approved against the clean airs act.
Edit: And when I say biodiesel, I mean vegetable oil and styrene blend (diesel does contain a certain amount of styrene naturally but now we stunt have to harm ecosystems to get more)
It's a small contribution but it's a start. We should all do our best to curb our effects on the environment 😊
recycling is a lure, dangled in front of us, delaying public outcry at the consequences while big business makes its money. This stuff is disseminated everywhere, without hope of even partially collecting it back. Better to cease producing it. The biodisel guys are safe, cooking oil is and will be in use for millenia
What these programs never do is offer a way to get involved, invest ,or help in any substantial way.
great they're doing this, we still need to STOP using plastic/styro single use items. "They try to make them into cutlery and cups..." yeesh, nothing learned. Great frames though
In my opinion, we need to make use of the products we have. What we need to do is stop *producing* new plastics and reuse and recycle what we've already made until we can't reuse and recycle them anymore, while also focusing on producing cleaner and more environmentally friendly resources.
Making them into cutlery and cups is way better than making them into frames. You want the recycling process to be a loop not a one way ticket. If we can keep recycling the same cups and bowls and make them new we can eliminate most of the environmental impact
@@kellensanna not how it works, plastics are chemically made, we can't recycle them like metals.
To many greedy people in the world that don't care about or environment. This won't stop until we all choke on our plastic water and food.
@@tomislav5689 Unfortunately not everything can be made from metal though. Plastic dose play a useful role some areas where the alternatives don't work for sanitary or safety reasons. Like electrical parts, such as switches. wall outlets. etc. That can't be completely made of something that is conductive to electricity like metal. Some single use plastics do also fall in that category for personal protection. Like disposable gloves. condoms. to name two.
I remember in the 90s when companies swore you could easily recycle that shit, turns out they just shipped it to China. Was curious why, today, I can't recycle it where I live when we use to be able to. Found out we ran out of places to export it to.
My city's recycling center has a densifier machine. They turn the foam into blocks that then get sent to other companies to be reused.
Hi Jessie, hte foam densifier appears in this video is our brand called GREENMAX, we are also the end user of hat, would you like to recommand us the recycling center so we could buy that from them?
Some people are just so smart and we need more people like these people
God bless this company for their recycling efforts.
I just had a magical Willy Wonka moment there and imagined it was sponge candy. I'm ok, I'm sitting down now.
🤣 🍭
That’s a marshmallow bro😂
I've worked for Dupont for 20 years and I had no clue they owned Styrofoam. Guess I learn something every day.
Using less things will be the best option.
Yes, exactly. Plastics, because they are polymers, do not act like metals when you heat them up. Since they don't return to their chemical precursors in that state, recycled plastic is lower quality, more expensive, and more difficult to work with than virgin material. Even making it cost-competitive does not fix those other problems. This method of heating up and crushing the air out of polystyrene foam is clearly not viable as a general method to deal with the plastic problem if it can't readily be turned into things that we need, like how they're "working" on making plates and utensils. If melting plastics down to recover the materials was an actual possibility, why don't we see it commonly done with almost any of the plastics we use in our day-to-day lives? Nobody's complaining about a "scrap metal crisis", because metal can ACTUALLY be recycled into usable raw materials.
It's pretty clear to me that Business Insider has an agenda with making this video. They show a tiny operation running a flawed recycling process as proof that the system is working when it clearly isn't, which we can see by the amount of plastic waste polluting the world. Then, at the end, use this as justification for why we shouldn't ban the use of single-use plastics. Ah yes, why stop a problem at its source when society can spend millions of dollars every year cleaning up the mess? Genius! These are the exact same things the plastics industry has always done in order to pretend that its product is sustainable, which it isn't and never was.
Even if our current recycling technology could actually deal with the problem, it's unpreventable that some percentage of what we use will end up in the environment. This is simply reality -- not everything can be collected, and sometimes things get lost. The more we manufacture, the more items will make their way into nature. This is how you get our current predicament of microplastics covering literally all of the earth's surface, ending up in every part of the food chain -- the food chain that WE rely on to sustain us. We have no idea what their effects on our bodies will be, and it's recently been found that they can end up crossing the blood-brain barrier. We could be risking our own health just to enrich the plastics industry.
It's reduce, reuse, recycle -- in that order. Single-use plastics have to be completely eliminated wherever possible, and it should be replaced by a recyclable/biodegradable alternative ONLY when there is no feasible alternative. We don't have a sustainable plastic yet, don't let these videos convince you otherwise.
How to use less food container for takaways?
@@mikloscsuvar6097 you should figure it out.
@@syedtahbibshams "We should do a thing."
"How."
"You do it."'
Your opinion is worth less than the fraction of a cent worth of electricity it took for you to type it.
Everything made should have a whole of live plan which includes a recycling and an associated recycling industry. The companies that produce the products should be required to have the plan and how it is to be recycled. If it can't be recycled then its use should be scrutinized.
And why is that?
Then stop buying it, I grantee you buy stuff monthy In Plastic containers
It'll be hard for corporation to take this initiative on their own, most effective is to make this into law. Make it a requirement for the entire product lifecycle to be considered. But the administrative work coming from monitoring this would be crazy too..
See this is the type of shit people who don’t understand economics THINK is a good idea. If it made economic sense to recycle we would be doing it more often already. Recycling most products costs more than making new ones.
4:10 This alone made me subscribe to you.
The fact that you bothered to inform the audience that this information maybe not true, even though most similar channels would have presented it as pure fact.
it was created to solve the litter and pollution problem. it was meant to dissolve in direct sunlight. the problem is, they never really told the cities that, so they buried them in landfills, which makes it last almost forever, creating a new environmental problem.
The best, quickest and most direct way to dispose of all plastic and paper (newspaper, cardboard, etc.) is to burn it close to where it is produced. This plastic and paper is free fuel. It burns. You use the heat to generate electricity. It is done in New York City, in my town in Massachusetts and hundreds of other places all over the world. The global leader in this super-efficient process is Sweden. So you do three things by converting waste to energy - you get rid of the waste, you avoid the need for future landfills and you get the highest value energy source of all, which is electricity. Recycling is an expensive and inefficient myth.
I'm all for recycling but I rather the world stop using Styrofoam and switch over to something like paper.
Ironically hollywood depends on ths material for props, sets, etc.
@@npcimknot958 Then they can set up recycling plants to turn the foam back into new foam for new props
@@npcimknot958 That isn't ironic at all. Also Hollywood using it would be a drop in the ocean compared to its worldwide use as a packaging material.
What I've noticed is places that don't use styrofoam to hold my take-out meal simply use normal plastic containers that look much like tupperware but are thinner. I assume these are easier to recycle. What would be ideal is if we could come up with a material that will simply biodegrade after a few months of exposure to high humidity. So, you could store them in a dry place, use them to hold food and they'll be durable enough to hold that food for a few weeks (which is way more than you'd need if we're talking about single-use) and then bury them in a landfill and they degrade in less than a year.
They make pressed paper containers like that which can be composted, unfortunatly landfills are anaerobic environments where nothing composts, so they need to go in a home compost bin or curbside yard waste bin.
Wait until they come up with micro plastic or micro this and that
The terms "probable or possible carcinogen" is a ridiculous term, almost any chemical in existence could be defined in this way.
That's how they do it. New product that doesn't sell well? Just label the cheap products on the market with that stigma and voila!
This is wonderful.
Now I can purchase picture frames free from any guilt.
I will put as many as I can into every room of my house.
I have had many sleepless nights worrying about my frames.
Now the world will be a better place.
Somebody please explain to me whats going on between 2:58-3:35. Are they making cups, just so they can destroy it the next minute?!
Recycling styrofoam is energy-intensive.
Throwing it in landfill is better ?
I thought the same but some energy consumption can be mitigated through green energy sources.
Yes but it’s still worth it environmentally, we can generate electricity more environmentally but there’s nothing to make plastic on landfill or environment safer
Who cares
This stuff is disseminated everywhere, collected back mixed with other waste and is too frail and lightweight to sort out industrially. 30% of landfills? We are too eco-poor to use it, are we not?
"In 2015, Stanford University scientists discovered that mealworms could be employed to break down Styrofoam (polystyrene) waste. The insects eat the material and break it down through digestion. Since then, the team has found that the worms do not absorb the toxic substance in the foam (hexabromocyclododecane, aka HBCD) into their bodies. Meaning, the bugs are safe to eat! They can be used to help with the problem of Styrofoam waste and then livestock feed."
while that sounds cool in a lab, realistically the number of worms required to recycled any reasonable amount of foam would be far to high for practical use.
What do you do with the HBCD
When I was a child everything came in brown paper bags. We never stop to think what the downside is of our so-called "progress". As long as it helps "make" money anything is acceptable.
The only issue with everyone saying use paper is that, that will create its own problems. If the entire world switched from plastic packaging and bags for groceries etc at once we would need a lot more wood to cope. The UK just stopped supplying plastic bags, so now you have to re-use your own, or buy 'bags for life' that are material.
I am collecting EPS so that once I manage to change my house roof, I will have over 30 cubic meters of it, so that I can use it as isolation, i will have to shred it. To top it of so that it would stay in place i will have to use some sort of other material. All new houses should be insulated that say, no excess eps would be left
Here in the Netherlands biodegradable packaging doesn't get composted, is that the same in every country?
This stuff makes up 30% of landfill contents? That seems like far too high of an estimate. But I can't find anything to prove or disprove it.
I work in waste management, in fact today I was just processing data I collected this summer, we recycle polystyrene so I don't have waste data on it but off the top of my head if we put all the styrofoam in the landfill it would probably be 2-4%
Great to see someone is recycling some of it but this material really needs to be banned. Is there anything it’s used for that couldn’t be replaced by cardboard or something else more sustainable? Certainly polystyrene plates/cups/food containers could all be replaced by a more sustainable material. Interested to hear of any examples where it can’t be easily replaced…
You can also recycle it with a solvent. You can waterproof a roof with this stuff and it's very effective.
Living in the desert southwest USA I often wonder if it's environmentally beneficial to rinse and clean items in preparation for recycling.
It probably isn't, but I do it anyway.
EPS or expanded polystyrene foam is easy to recycle and has been reused so much that is even is cradle to cradle certified! Here in the Netherlands we use and reuse the material for decades, even to build energy-neutral houses from it. Personally, I have also designed several products and even boats with it. It is a great material to use and reuse.
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Update: Styro go, in Canada is permanently shut down.
Why
@@brianscalabrine2225 tax issues apparently
@@jxavier3876 The typical fate of a Canadian business!
Great idea!! Nice to know there are people saving the earth and people. Be nice if AMERICA was smart.
respect to people working in recycling industries, they are doing one of the most important jobs of human kind
Dissolves in gasoline instantly to 5% or less by volume. Can be safely disposed of like oil based paint
We should recycle resources as they are scarce. 🤠
Yup
The styrofoam could be better used as a poor man's insulation material instead further processing into other products like photo frames which can be directly made and not through a convoluted process of heating and extruding waste material
Big chunks maybe but the smaller items probably not, densification is a good solution that makes a usable product.
Step #1. Stop making Styrofoam.
Step #2. Repeat step #1.
But what when I need to protect my 2 inch rubber ball that's shipped in a large box filled with styrofoam peanuts?
@@justinnee1572 Use water soluble starch packing peanuts. A lot of places, including where I work, already do. You can then snack on the flavorless packing peanuts your 2 inch rubber ball came in ✌
Too expensive for the vast majority of people
Styrofoam (which is a trademark) and similar polystyrene gas cell based foam products can be degassed when exposed to acetone gas or similar solvents with a low boiling point.
When the polystyrene cell structure is softened by the acetone gas, it collapses and liquidizes.
Later in the process, the acetone gas and the gas that was contained within the foam cells can be evacuated from the polystyrene by vacuum treatment and the acetone separated from the cell gasses by compression to atmospheric pressure and cooling.
The result is polystyrene in a more or less pristine form.
Although it cannot be used in production of new foam products, polystyrene is used as solid plastic in many products.
Everybody in the plastic industry knows about this method or variants of it.
4:35 this does not explain the lack of widespread use of this method - why does the video state that it does?
this material makes me cringe with the sound and texture satisfying to break th0
Styrofoam is right up there as one of the worst inventions ever made.
Actually plastic in general is the worst. It's also the most convenient and cost efficient to produce.
I at least appreciate the fact that the guy who made pop up adds apologized.
You don’t think nuclear weapons, blister agents, weaponized anthrax, anime, etc are pretty bad? Rather go after the basic material of society that provide you with the highest quality of living in human history...
@@HughesEnterprises nuclear weapons basically ended neer peer wars
@hahaimabitch1 not freezing to death at night with foam insulation.
"700 empire state buildings " Americans will do anything avoid using the metric system.
yep
It's same as in Finland heights are often referred as x times of height of stadium tower (I have no idea it's height). But those reporters usually live near it so they expect that everyone knows it.
The volume of the empire state building is not an iso standard unit of measurement.
@@lightningdemolition1964 There's also "The Wales" here...
@@lightningdemolition1964 Nothing used in the US of A seems to be.
The main problem with all that plastic waste is... why do we not STOP TO MAKE IT.
Breathing in the dust is harmful, but clearly the worker at 1:59 is immune
The best way to deal with this stuff is to not use it in the first place.
The images of a guy handing another guy 3 or 4 small plastic trays at a time to put into a shreder while another watches really doesn't scream industrial volumes
It's probably government funded operation.
We see a lot of labour and other parameters need to be set. So wel adding this together the producer Dupont should pay as Other producers for the costs of getting it out into the system, researching how to recycle economicaly and close the cycle... watched closely by gouvernements and international and local civil action groups
Yes, kind of how we pay a carbon tax on gas and other fuels. I agree! But at the same time we know that that would just equal the consumer (us) paying a ridiculous price in the end.
0:50 BIG! Correction: Polystyrene was discovered in 1839 by Eduard Simon, from the resin of the Oriental sweetgum tree.
0:36 Swedish inventor Carl Munters patented the process of Expended Polystyrene around 1920 (Styrofoam) Dow bought the rights to Munters’s method 1941.
when i see the stuff going into the grinders it is always clean and new looking.
You can shred styrofoam into the small bits. Mix it with concrete and you get aircrete. This is really interesting material, you can use it to isolate or build floors out of it. Even one story sheds and other applications are possible.
Is it strong?
@@skeptical1465 the foam densifier appears in this video is our brand called GREENMAX, we are also the end user of recycled EPS and EPE, would you like to recommand us the so we could buy that from them?
I'm interested in starting a company that shreds and coats styrofoam and once recycled cardboard in natural sources of potassium, nitrogen and phosphorus. To rid the planet of styrofoam and redistribute it as recycled soil and organic fertilizer once mixed with sand. What machine are they using to grind the styrofoam?
"To rid the planet of styrofoam and redistribute it as recycled soil and organic fertilizer once mixed with sand" Why not mix it with cement to make insulated load bearing homes for people so we don't need to depop them like we're shutting down the shipping to do right now?
Start your business yo. Idk anything about chemicals but seeing people create small businesses is really awesome. If we all work together we can make great change!
The solution is very simple- when your unpack something you simply ship back the styrofoam back to the shipping company when the shipping / producers receive 1 million tons of it they will simply find a way to make it recyclable = if We don’t say anything They won’t do anything.
I think one of the most important steps in a recycling process is to try and take a single use or disposable product and and recycle it into something with a far longer design life. Like a photo frame that will hold that photo for 20-30 years or longer. That's part of the reason why I think cycling waste material into construction materials that would exist within a building for 40-50 years or longer. Try and give that material the fewest possible opportunities to end up in a landfill. In doing so, sequester it as long as we can, where it is doing minimal harm until we come up with an even better solution to deal with it.
4:15 Slowly putting in wee chunks of polystyrene into the chipper when it should be a bulldozer pushing it into a way bigger hopper. Then they would get closer to 5% recycling.
instead of making Styrofoam illegal, couldn't we make it illegal to make these plastics from anything besides recycled materials? Attack it from the other end.
Why did no one recycle styrofoam earlier? It is so easy to do lol.
Our local recycler recently stopped taking styrofoam. I imagine the volume per pound makes transporting it very expensive. Every waste collection company would need to “densify” it before transporting it.
@@FAK_CHEKR It's so much more lightweight than glass....hmm...
@@greeleyestateslove it's not about weight but the volume of the Styrofoam. Styrofoam is lightweight but occupies alot of space, so if uncompressed it's not worth to transport.
Can be recycled into Molotov cocktails in Ukraine.
Near time-stamp 5:26, the narrator says that Colorado has banned single use plastics. Well, I live in Denver, the capital city of Colorado. You can buy Styrofoam (polystyrene) cups at any grocery store in Denver. I know, because I stocked the shelves at a "Save-a-Lot" grocery store untill may 30, 2022 and I myself put packages of polystyrene cups on the shelf for customers to buy less than week ago I purchased a cup of horchata from a food truck and it came in a white Styrofoam cup. The government can pass whatever law it likes, but people keep doing whatever is easiest to do. If there are trash bins, but no recycling bins, then people won't recycle. If buying biodegradable cups is more expensive than polystyrene cups, then people will continue to buy polystyrene cups.
Seems like the best use for used styrofoam would be for them to clean and shred it, then use it as blow in insulation. No need to worry about incompatible forms or different compositions that way. Could also put them into appropriately sized/shaped bags to fit into stud walls so as to not be so messy at renovation time.
Can we just stop talking about recycling plastic and start talking about not producing plastic. Lots of non cancerous alternatives.