Posted by Doug Malawey on Mon, May 10, 2010
Where are you sending your recycled plastic products today? Doesn't it make more sense to keep the recycle plastics here in the United States?
Think about it. In order to make plastic products, you need petroleum. The more plastic products we make from virgin (new or non-recycled) materials, the more petroleum we need. Have you looked at the gas pump recently? Or do 
you know how many plastic products are being pumped into the ocean each day in the Gulf of Mexico, in the form of a crude oil spill? It seems to me that if all the recycled plastics we are exporting to other countries, (and then buying back in the form of cheaply made products) were to be recycled right here in our own country, the demand for crude oil would be less.
In 2006, 331 million barrels of petroleum, (314.5 million barrels of crude to produce) were used to make plastics and plastic products in the United States plastics and resins industry. That's 4.6% of the United States total petroleum consumption, or at $90 a barrel, about 30 billion dollars, not spent across the water. But the same things would be produced here, keeping our jobs at home, and employing some of our own, and boosting the "Made in America" products, which in this day and age, are hard to come by.
Take a look around. There are companies who are end users of recycled plastics right here in our own country. And they are not so hard to find. Additionally, I have known some of the end user buyers to be paying as much as the exporters. And now, not only are you becoming (or maintaining) "green", but your helping your fellow American get or keep a job, doing your part to help our economy.
Posted by Jeff Knapp on Wed, Apr 07, 2010
Over 69 million pounds of EPS were recycled in 2008. In the past decade EPS has achieved an average recycling rate of 12%, one of the highest of the plastics family.
What is made from this recycled EPS?
More EPS (expandable polystyrene) in several different forms: packaging peanuts, shape molded and block molded
- Picture frames, door and window frames, coat hangers, park benches, flower pots, toys, rulers, stapler bodies, seedling containers, CD and DVD cases
- Mixed with concrete to produce new building products such as prefabricated concrete blocks.
- Co-mingled plastics products such as decking, lumber and interior trim.
- Mixed with soil and compost to promote aeration.
Let us help you in your efforts to recycle EPS and Styrofoam.