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Comment by lsllc | Hacker News Reader

Even with this development in recycling, Styrofoam should just be banned for packaging. Aside from disposal, it's very brittle and you end up opening a box only to find smashed up Styrofoam that now escapes all over the house/outside/car which is nearly impossible to clean up adding yet more micro plastics to the environment.

There's nothing wrong with using formed cardboard packing instead of styrofoam and it can be recycled again, or at least if it ends up in a landfill, it'll biodegrade instead of still being there at the eventual heat death of the universe.

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Styrofoam should absolutely be banned. It should be considered toxic waste at this point. There are incrementally more expensive solutions that companies can use instead of styrofoam, there's no excuse for its use anymore. It's literally single-use and no one else can use a piece of styrofoam efficiently. It often takes up so much space that it fills up your landfill garbage bin. As a planet we should ban its use with prejudice.

I'm really trying to think, but I don't think I've encountered styrofoam in years. All the packaging for mid-sized consumer products that would have used it in the past (small blender, air purifier, dust buster, etc.) seem to use either formed cardboard or else folded cardboard with cutouts.

The last times I remember seeing it were when I bought a window AC unit and a portable digital piano. Both of which weigh 25+ pounds, where I think only styrofoam is the only economical material which exists that is both protective enough but also able to support all that weight. I'd guess heavy blenders would also still need it.

So not sure we need to ban it if manufacturers have already mostly stopped using where cardboard is a viable replacement? Unless there are categories of products still using it that I'm missing?

Same with styrofoam for to-go food containers -- everything I see is plastic or cardboard now, haven't seen styrofoam in years. Unless this is regional?

I have encountered it as building insulation recently.

In my neighborhood, millions of styrofoam beads blew away from a construction site, then settled like snow on grass fields, in gutters, and in other nooks and crannies. I reported it to the city and they did nothing. Now that styrofoam will be out there forever.

I would not be opposed to a ban.

But styrofoam is a great insulator for buildings and lasts over decades. Producing small dust by poor constructing is not good so should be fixed, but insulating significantly contributes to reduce energy usage. I think pros is far more important than cons unless constructor is bad.

no packing peanuts in your life? consider yourself lucky

Who ships things to you in packing peanuts?

Everybody uses those air pillows now, or else those crinkle cardboard strips for things like ceramic.

I'm genuinely curious what types of companies ship to you with packing peanuts. I honestly kind of assumed they weren't even made anymore.

They got mealworms to eat styrofoam, so that stuff will likely be everywhere soon as the "environmental" container material.

Doesn't that mean microplastics will end up in the food chain from the animals that eat mealworms

Nope - its digested (chemically processed).

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200527105055.h...

> The team placed 50 superworms in a chamber with polystyrene as their only carbon source, and after 21 days, the worms had consumed about 70% of the plastic. The researchers then isolated a strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria from the gut of the worms and showed that it that could grow directly on the surface of polystyrene and break it down. Finally, they identified an enzyme from the bacteria, called serine hydrolase, that appeared to be responsible for most of the biodegradation. This enzyme, or the bacteria that produce it, could someday be used to help break down waste polystyrene, the researchers say.

It is decomposed into simpler components that can be used by the bacteria itself for energy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serine_hydrolase

That's reassuring. Perhaps biopunk will allow us to create a brighter solarpunk future.

Now to try and gather all the styrofoam...

It still doesn't feel like a reasonable picture.

Not when we have alternatives such as corrugated cardboard.

Gathering all the styrofoam is a problem. However, cardboard doesn't fit all the roles that styrofoam fills (in particular insulation).

There's certainly a need to use the most recyclable solution (rather than cheapest) of the practical options. It is also important to remember that not all recyclable solutions are practical.

For packing fill and protection, switching from styrofoam to cardboard increases its carbon footprint because of the increased weight of the cardboard needed for packaging.

https://theecobahn.com/packaging/plastic-vs-cardboard-packag...

Having better recycling with plastic products can mean reduced shipping footprint, reduced water usage (recycling paper products is water intensive) and a reduced demand for wood pulp meaning that planted trees can capture more carbon before they're needed as a resource.

Our current use of plastics (lack of recycling options leading to disposal in landfill) is not something that is sustainable but going with solutions like corrugated cardboard can hide other costs.

Well yes, we can't replace all usages of styrofoam with cardboard.

But that is why I said "such as cardboard". It would have to be on a case by case basis, such as the expanded corn foam.

Materials like styrofoam when it is lots of little balls compressed together are terrible as they always break up and would never be able to be all collected up.

The expanded foam plastics that are formed into the correct shape so they don't shatter into tiny pieces would already be better. The small ball form should be banned as it is the worst form of it.

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