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Comment by dekhn | Hacker News Reader

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."

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'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.

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