Waste to Waves Recycling Program Gives Foam a Second, Ocean-Friendlier Life
Holiday shopping is upon us, and whether they do it in the stores or online, Americans are going to buy an absurd number of appliances, electronics, gizmos and gadgets in the run-up to Christmas.
With those gifts will come millions of pounds of packaging. While the cardboard box encasing your flat screens and Vitamixes typically can be recycled, the protective packaging foam (commonly known as “styrofoam”) that keeps those goodies snug usually can’t. As a result, most foam ends up in a landfill or, even worse, in the ocean.
Michael Stewart, co-founder of Sustainable Surf (a San Francisco nonprofit), discovered this sad reality over years of participating in California beach clean ups. Tired of seeing this type of plastic trash in and around the ocean, Stewart and Sustainable Surf’s other co-founder Kevin Whilden started the Waste to Waves program, which aims to recycle styrofoam packaging back into new products — most notably, surfboards.
Surfboards can be made with one of two types of foam: polyurethane or polystyrene. Polystyrene, the kind used for foam packaging, is a petroleum-based product that is banned in various cities.
Through collection bins at California surf shops, the program gathers polystyrene foam from packaging and delivers it to program partner Marko Foam. Marko Foam uses a densifier machine to grind up and melt the material, which is molded into a brick of recycled foam.
Source: Huffington Post Green