melting polystyrene

I'd be very careful whatever you do as the chemicals it gives off are very toxic. I have seen it kind of chipped into plastic bags, where, I assume it is used for packaging or recycled.

There seems to be two distinct types though. One is the traditional kind that is brittle and breaks easily the other is far more solid and rubbery with what feels like a film over it.

The former type does seem to melt with acetone, or even quite low heats, but both seem to cause a very nasty smell. Brian

w burning it is effective but not popular !. I also noticed that certain pe troleum products melt it but thats not very eco-friendly. So are there any alternative methods of reducing the volume of polystyrene packaging materia ls ?

shred, ebay

Alas no. I suspect this is why it's rarely recycled from domestic waste. It's just too darned bulky.

It's OK to burn it. Years ago they altered the formula so it doesn't give out the deadly gases like it used to. It looks bad now when you burn it, but the particulates are large and fall to the ground. There's very little pollution. Trouble is prodnoses aren't aware of these facts, so you need to do it at night.

Bill

In message , fred writes

give it to a group of children, they will break it up into lots of small pieces.

Do it outside and it will all blow away

Petrol + expanded polystyrene = Napalm.

Interesting stuff to play with.

It's coming up to the time when children are told to build nativity scenes at school. Let them take it in as snow.

G.Harman

I use polystyrene and bubble wrap to insulate plants I overwinter. Saves me spending £50 on new geraniums every spring.