Posted by Doug Malawey on Fri, Jun 11, 2010
Have you been watching the Euro?
In case you haven't noticed, Foam Equipment & Consulting Company is the North American Representative (Sales, Service, Parts and Consulting) for several German machine builders. For these companies, we are the sole rep. Between the different machinery lines for the foam molding industry and the foam recycling industry, (expandable polystyrene, expandable polyethylene, expandable polypropylene and extruded polystyrene), we have molding machinery, filling injectors, EPS, EPE and EPP grinding equipment, and foam compactors for the densification of foam, for recycling purposes.
What's that got to do with the Euro you ask? 
Well, this equipment comes from Germany. This is German engineering and technology at its best. And you know what that means. It's not the most inexpensive equipment out there. But like anything else, you get what you pay for.
But if you have not been watching the Euro, it's a good time to take a look at it. If you are interested in buying our German equipment, it's time to make a move. Like all other things, it probably won't stay down forever. At the current price, it's close to 25% cheaper to buy something today, than it was just 6 months ago. That can be significant. I bet your tip fees or the cost to empty your dumpster of foam has not gone down 25%, (while you continue to let that plastic go to the landfill.)
When we are able to save some money on the Styrofoam recycling equipment or molding equipment, we pass it on to our customers.
Currently the Euro is below the average of the last 500 days.
Posted by Jeff Knapp on Thu, May 27, 2010
There is a misconception that Styrofoam TM (Expandable PolyStyrene or EPS) is not recyclable and that is wrong. EPS recycling is growing stronger every day. Styrofoam TM or EPS is the number "6" recycling plastic and it must be reduced or compacted to make it feasible to ship to a plastics recycler. It has become a coveted raw material for recyclers and they are discovering a wide range of markets for it.
A full trailer load of loosely stacked EPS foam will only weigh approximately 2000 pounds. After the foam is run through a compactor or densifier 40,000 pounds or more can go on that same trailer and now it is cost effective for shipping. 
A screw compactor can take a 1 pound per cubic foot piece of Styrofoam and reduce the volume to as much as 20 pounds per cubic foot. This compactor or densifier can also process other types of foam.
There needs to be bigger push for all types of recycling, Styrofoam included. It's plain and simple, recycling still costs more than landfilling in many locations - it's all about the cost.
So how do we curb the landfilling? Just like we do for alcohol, cigarettes and gambling, we create a sin tax that would increase the cost of landfilling. This tax money is then used for recycling efforts: setting up recycling locations, paying workers and purchasing equipment, like the EPS compactor.