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Comment by radicalbyte | Hacker News Reader

Here in The Netherlands we collect styrofoam with the recycling, it is then turned into a high value insulation product used to help insulate our housing stock.

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Reduce is better than re-use - I don't think I've seen styrofoam for the last few years in the UK. Cups and food containers are paper and packaging for things like TVs is now shaped cardboard. What are you still getting in styrofoam over there?

Every monitor and tv i have ever bought used it for transport. (Germany)

It's very common in the packaging for computers and monitors that we order, although shout out to HP for transitioning to almost full cardboard packaging for their desktop PCs.

The new Dell monitor I just bought was also all-cardboard packaging, with some impressive engineering with layered compartments and accordion-spring folded reinforcement sections to keep the whole thing nicely sturdy.

I recently received a M1 Mini and I was impressed with Apple's packaging. The white box the computer was in had plastic wrap around it but everything else was cardboard or paper. The cable was secured with paper, not twist-ties. The white box fits neatly into the brown cardboard box and is protected at the corners.

Also happy with the M1 Mini, which has 16GB but I don't do virtualization. Mostly too many tabs.

Apples packaging is better than most but I doubt they would be able to ship a monitor in the same hard cardboard they ship small products in.

You mean, like the iMac?

I think the iMac packaging involves styrofoam and not just the paper parts used on their laptops and the Mac Mini.

I've ordered a bunch of DELL monitors over the last few years. All came in cardboard packaging with no styrofoam.

it's rare to get anything styrofoam in Oregon, but the last time I visited Florida, it was all over the place - take out containers, everything.

it really depends on the state, since those regulations are currently at the state level. a lot of states frown on federal mandates, and a lot of cities frown on state mandates. we're a huge country.

I just opened an LG product that had quite a bit of styrofoam in the box.

It is infrequent enough now that I often remark when I do see it.

LG started as a chemicals company producing plastics, and LG Chem still does that, so I guess they'd be one of the last to switch. There is always a certain preference for buying from your own company :)

Some companies are getting better at this, but I still see computer parts padded with styrofoam.

> Cups and food containers are paper

Paper covered with PFAS? Not sure whether that's any better than styrofoam.

Any good sources about that?

Some recent discussion here, and it the pages linked from that discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25557113

> in the UK ... packaging for things like TVs is now shaped cardboard.

Shaped cardboard packaging is not universal. I see as much styrofoam as those.

Styrofoam is terrible as 1) the council don't want it in the recycling bins. 2) inevitably it breaks, scattering little foamed plastic beads that disperse easily in wind. So it eventually contributes to the environmental microplastics

>Reduce is better than re-use...

I'm not so sure, reducing often does involve carbon release. In this case half the carbon in the styrofoam is released by the mealworms as CO2. If we can delay that a few decades why wouldn't we? Also re-use doesn't preclude eventual reduction, and by delaying it we may also be able to take advantage of more advanced reduction options. I think we need to look at these things on a case by case basis.

The phrase is "reduce, reuse, recycle, in that order" (each being better than the next). In this context, reduction means not buying styrofoam in the first place. I think you're confusing reduction with recycling.

I had a ton of extra styrofoam (I live in the SF Bay Area). It was hard to find out what to do with it, but finally found out that SF will take styrofoam waste for free and compact it with a densifier. Their site says "Our densifier converts Styrofoam into ingots, which can be re-manufactured into door and crown moldings, picture frames, and side and deck board."

'Can be'... I'd be curious what percentage actually is re-purposed and how much ends up in a landfill

so am I. It seemed that out of all the alternatives, this was the best option since it was free, and ostensibly recycled where all the other options were to throw it in landfill.

At the very least, those ingots will occupy less space in a landfill...

Also, we might have a far better recycling technology in 100 years and will know where to find the material. Perhaps it is better to simply store it somewhere for the future. Only now we should make sure it doesn't find its way to the oceans.

Store-and-use-later is underrated...

Most trash heaps from 100+ years ago have something of value in for people today (antiques, museum artifacts, leftover gold/metals in mine waste, etc.).

It seems unlikely that today's trash heaps won't have something of value for future people.

The only challenge is how to stop leaching of poisonous stuff...

I had an odd experience taking styrofoam to the dump in SF. On most days I would be told to just put it in some random dumpster, no receipt written up and no vehicle weigh in/out or anything. I figured that was just the process until one day I was told to take it to a specific place where there was other styrofoam being collected, my vehicle was weighed in/out and a receipt generated. Who knows what they were doing with it on those other days?

Yes, I also had to go through weighing and getting a receipt (but it was still free), and dropped off the foam right in front of the densifier. I've never been through that transfer station before, it's probably just covid rearrangement.

Turning the waste into building & construction materials is definitely going to be one of the major industrial ways of low-carbon polymer recycling.

Its already Here and its not necessarily industrial scale either its called EPSCrete [1] Yep no need to transport your styrofoam to a recycler and buy back some insulation product when you can make it yourself [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expanded_polystyrene_concrete

[2] http://www.norishouse.com/archives/582

Does styrofoam introduce any extra fire risk?

I would say that's a yes: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-21/cladding-crisis-sprea...

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/insulation-blame...

The city where I live is recycling styrofoam to produce lightweight concrete as well as injected insulation foam.

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