Chip clips, tent stakes and auto parts – you wouldn’t know from looking at them but at one point in their plastic lives, they were giant pieces of plastic foam.
A Yuba City company is working to create a successful recycling program for expanded polystyrene, commonly known as Styrofoam. The pilot project is proving successful and now Greenfreak is thinking about bigger possibilities, perhaps building picnic benches or Adirondack chairs out of their recycled product.
“It’s the holy grail of recycling when you can recycle a material and improve it’s value,” said Doug Gibbs, vice president of operations.
The business model is fairly simple: Divert expanded polystyrene from the landfill, then recycle it into a higher-value product and train local residents how to manufacture, sell and market those new plastic products.
For the last several months, Greenfreak has partnered with Recology Yuba-Sutter to collect expanded polystyrene from Butte, Sutter, Yuba and Colusa counties and turn it into new materials.
The process starts by feeding the airy, voluminous material through a densification machine. It takes only minutes to shred a mountain of light-weight pieces of expanded polystyrene and compress it into a small pile of hard plastic logs, which are then chipped and molded into new items.
The goal is to reduce waste whenever possible. A major find were the spring hinges for the chip clips, plastic clips used to seal folded-over plastic and foil bags. The hinges are the recycled metal springs from big-box store plastic clothing hangers thrown away by the billions every year.
“If you look at the footprint of some of this recycled stuff, our goal is to really recycle,” Gibbs said.
Those at Greenfreak were thrilled when they were able to take in not just the A grade of expanded polystyrene, which is pure and unsoiled, but a lesser B grade, and divert more from the waste stream.
The plan is to use A grade for durable medical equipment, auto parts, tent stakes and the chip clips, which Greenfreak actually has orders for already. The B grade can be used for other items, like stepping stones, fake rocks, tables, benches and parking lot bumpers.
Daren Otton runs the sustainable manufacturing program at California State University, Chico, which reaches out to regional businesses with new, novel or interesting solutions for the challenges faced by manufacturers. A new end use for expanded polystyrene other than the landfill is a great idea, he said.
“There is potential across the board in a lot of areas,” he said. “The idea that we can recapture what was traditionally waste or things we discarded is going to be critical for pretty much anything.”
For the last few months, Otton’s team of business and engineering students has helped Greenfreak address mechanical and engineering challenges while also looking at cost-effectiveness.
Right now, supply and demand for recycled expanded polystyrene is one of the biggest issues, Otten said. It’s not like aluminum, which at the recycled level has a economically profitable equation.
“Purchasing polystyrene in virgin form is more cost-effective than other versions out there,” he said. “(Gibbs) picked the biggest hill in the plastics recycling side of the world to try to push up.”
But the mission is a good one, he said. The Greenfreak goal fits all three sectors of the sustainability triad – environmental, economical and social.
“This is one of those projects that a traditional company would never take and start with today in Yuba City,” Otton said. “Having said that, it’s about the place and about the time one of these things might potentially fly.”
Gibbs hopes one day in the no-too-distant future residents can put expanded polystyrene in blue recycle toters instead of the trash, and that hundreds of residents will be working in Yuba-Sutter warehouses to create recycled plastic products.
“I think the public perception is this is a really horrible product because it doesn’t degrade, and that’s true,” said Greenfreak Chief Executive Officer Ilya Lerma. “But if you can divert it with a program using local labor, local manufactures and local materials, it’s a huge value. To put it in the landfill is a really sad end use for it when there is so much more potential.”
Recology Yuba-Sutter is still trying to figure out just how much expanded polystyrene is ending up in the landfill, said general manager Dave Vaughn. It a voluminous substance and space is a precious commodity.
“We are always looking at ways to divert materials,” Vaughn said. “Styrofoam is one of those materials we would like to find the highest and greatest use for.”
Recology is continuing to explore potential opportunities with Greenfreak.
“They are a forward-thinking organization and they are trying to do what they can to make the best use of that material and we are trying to figure out how we can assist in that process,” Vaughn said.
Source: appealdemocrat.com
By Ashley Gebb