16 May 2014

Public Service Announcement

IT IS NOW POSSIBLE TO RECYCLE STYROFOAM IN THE SEATTLE AREA. 

I think this is a super cool thing to have available here, and today I dropped off my first giant bag of wonky Styrofoam blocks. I got a brief look at how they're processed, these blocks, which is with heat and pressure, which turns the lightweight blocks into a dense, heavy, extruded snake of hot plastic, which is back-and-forthed into a mold, and then stacked with other cooled, molded plastic blocks, which are about 12"X24"X8", and weigh 65 pounds. Sixty-five pounds! The same size block of Styrofoam in its white form wouldn't weigh more than one pound. These blocks of dense plastic are then sold to an endless list of manufacturers wanted plastic bits.

In case you're in the Seattle area and have a ton--or rather, a 5-pound truckload--of Styrofoam, you can take it to Styro Recycle, http://www.styrorecycle.com/, which has a drop-off place at IKEA, outside the southwest corner of the parking lot (the side NOT by the entrance to the store).

Mom, you can stop throwing it away.