It certainly wouldn't bother me. Some restaurants hereabouts already have switched to coated cardboard for both takeout coffee and leftovers, even soup to go in cardboard.
The most styrofoam I see is when we buy some sort of electronic thing.
We easily could cut way back on styrofoam use, and keep it for occasions when it really is the only thing for the job.
Cindy Hamilton
Agreed we should limit use. However coated paper still has some plastic and the paper making process is very environmentally unfriendly. Paper gets recycled back into maybe cardboard but coating may reject recycling.
I think that the reason most recycling facilities do not accept polystyrene is the numerous forms it comes in. There are people at the dump that have to cherry pick the stuff that comes in.
The point was that if they are toxic, they emit dangerous substances, then why are we drinking hot beverages from them?
For reasons similar to the fact that you're ok drinking wine from lead crystal but you shouldn't store it in lead crystal. Exposure over time.
Cindy Hamilton
Because it has been on the GRAS list for years and has not caused any problems. I've been in that industry for 45 years and never heard of anyone exposed to the material having any side effects from it.
We also accepted non food material for recycling. It was nearly free, just some cost to grind it. The only problem with recycling is the cost of getting to to the user. It is cheap and bulky. A couple of local appliance dealers would bring it every couple of weeks. That made sense but to take an 8 ounce piece to our plant and burn a gallon of gas to do it does not.
For decades it has been ground to be used by some farmers as a soil aerator. That started in Europe. You sometimes find it mixed in potting soil.
Easy enough to find FDA approval for polystyrene contacting food:
I don't see it on the GRAS list:
It is possible there are grades unacceptable for food contact because they contain an ingredient, e.g. a dye, not approved for food contact.
Well, I don't. I haven't even seen a styrofoam cup for years now. a few minutes != 500 years, so I don't know why you even ask. See also BPA.
Are you sure you're not confusing it with Vermiculite?
I bet Scott will tell you about the stuff leaching out of the plastic coating in the paper cup too. They are also not particularly recyclable. My waste hauler doesn't want them in the blue bin. They are trash.
No I have seen lots of potting soil with balls of styrofoam in it. It looks just like what you get when you crumble up a cheap cooler
If I meant vermiculite I would have said vermiculite. I sold truck loads of the ground EPS material to nurseries and farmers.
The cheap potting soils may have EPS. The better brands have perlite which looks a lot like ground EPS and is easily told from vermiculite.
I don't know if vermiculite is back in favor. A lot came from the mine in Libby, MT and contained asbestos.
I was long gone by the time the industry moved to HFC's. They were better for ozone depletion but still had a high GWP. (global warming potential). Now they're looking at hydrofluroolefins which have a very short life in the atmosphere. They are more expensive of course.
Shipping was a problem that I don't believe was ever solved. Rather than essentially moving air around the country, some way to create the foam product at the point of use would be ideal.
Sadly, they are very recyclable but there is no infrastructure to handle it. When I worked for Sweetheart the rejects were immediately ground and recycled.
That had an interesting side effect. One of the large contracts was for McDonalds clamshells. McDonalds had very strict color specifications that called for a sort of beige. Dyes were added to the blend, but the amount of regrind also affected the color and was taken into consideration. On good days when the lines were running smoothly and there wasn't a lot of material being recycled, the color would be out of spec.
Side note: dealing with Mickey Dee was a real pos. If the price of crystal styrene dropped a penny a pound they wanted a discount. If it went up, they didn't want to hear about it.
They still sell a lot of foam plates, cups and bowls at the grocery store and buyer's clubs so they are far from going away. Restaurants still use the big white clamshells too. I agree shipping must be a big part of the cost. Even nested tightly together, you are still shipping a lot of air.
In place of vermiculite
Styrene bubbles have been used in place of vermiculite for years by some suppliers
They got rid of the HFCs in the plates. The bead foam in cups and packaging never had HFCs.
As for shipping, most of those products are class 300 or class 400 so yes, it is expensive to move it. Many small regional manufacturing plants.
How about it leaching out of the potting soil. Will somebody please think of the plants? They are being forced to consume polluted water.
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