Recycle Styrofoam in Canada

EPS weight versus volume ``The aforelinked article contains this eye-popping statistic: Processing a ton of recycled Styrofoam costs $3,320, while the comparative figure for glass is about $90.'' As celebrated PhD Garbologist Bill Rathje notes, solid waste managers don't close landfills because they weigh too much. Landfills are limited by volume, not weight. So, we should compute processing costs based on potential volume savings in the landfill rather than the weight diver...ted. A ton of expanded polystyrene foam (EPS, often referred to as Styrofoam) in a landfill would have to take up at least 35 times ($3,320/$90) as much landfill volume as a ton of glass to justify L.A.'s processing cost. Per EPA's guideline, crushed glass weighs about 1 ton per cubic yard. Based on that, compacted EPS needs to weigh less than 2 pounds per cubic foot to justify L.A.'s picking it up. Since new EPS can weigh 1 to 4 pounds per cubic foot, this quickie analysis indicates recovering EPS is roughly as cost-effective as glass. But in reality, solid waste management, particularly the recycling angle, is not an exact science. See more

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Here is a post by Les, on his thoughts about recycling Styrofoam and obviously recycling in general. Les Hildebrand Fools to bad it cost 10000 percent in fuel for transportation that cold make the same material WAKE UP PEOPLE !!! dont fall for this crap. Just bury it with the regular trash and recycle the dumps later on. 13 hours ago Like... As you can see Les, claims that it would cost 10,000% fuel transportation to recycle Styrofoam over landfill, just doing the math in my head, would mean that a load of Styrofoam in a 53-foot trailer that weighed about 1000 pounds would cost over $100,000 to bring the material to recycle. National asset recovery specialists Limited: one of our members, recycles Styrofoam from major municipalities every day and the cost from the furthest municipalities to bring bailed Styrofoam weighing 24,000 pounds costs under $1000. The cost of landfill is an average of $150 per cubic meter. That translates into the packing around a 40-inch TV and 2 desktop computers. The landfill cost of a truck is about $3000 to the landfill. Toronto Ontario, just a couple years ago was sending 800 or more trucks a day 7 days a week the Michigan landfills. That's just for the landfill cost and doesn't include the thousands of gallons of diesel consumed or the pollution from 800 trucks or the damage to the highway infrastructure. Les, goes on to say in capital letters wake up people, don't fall for this crap. I guess by crap he means recycling the material. He wants us to truck it to the landfill and having buried and go back later on and dig it up. With this method Les there won't be any later. The reason that landfilling material is so expensive is: The land is expensive to buy Who wants a landfill close to their house Modern-day landfills are not dumps as in the past There are strict regulations on waste management The bottom of the landfill cell must be lined to prevent any kind of leachate etc. The garbage from these 800 trucks must be covered and compacted everyday. When the cell is full it must be covered with a rubberized material and then covered in clay and a new cell would be open. The cost of each cell is around 2 1/2 million dollars Using the theory presented by les, we would go back after a period of time tear apart the 2 1/2 million dollars cell dig out all the garbage then separated, take out the recyclable, and put the garbage back him to a new 2 1/2 million dollars cell. The only thing remotely feasible about les’ theory is the recyclables would still be there. In a modern-day landfill nothing breaks down including newspapers wood, vegetables or anything else. These sites are built airtight and no water, air or light gets into the cell. This would mean, if we woke up and accepted this proposal we could print his message out on a piece of paper and still read it 100 years from now.

This machine can save 7200 pounds from the landfill every day Landfilling Ontario Canada (read the story) Here is a situation that may concern you. ... Expanded Polystyrene (Styrofoam) is being dumped in Ontario Landfills at a rate of 20,000 tons every year and it is completely and easily recyclable. Our Company is a Canadian recycler that is well known across Canada and in 2011 managed to recycle 1000 tons of this material into crown molding and other architectural material. This was a saving of $11,000,000.00 over landfills The sad part is we could have recycled all 20,000 tons of Expanded Polystyrene generated in Ontario. We pride ourselves in recycling hard to market items like Styrofoam, grocery bags and other film plastic that is normally landfilled. Some of our clients include, the city of Kingston, the city of Waterloo, Ottawa Valley recycling Association and the University of Ottawa. We currently pay these municipalities $50.00 per ton for the material. EPS is a very recyclable and useful product as it can duplicate anything that is made of wood and is very easy to recycle. The demand for clean recycled Styrofoam severely outweighs the supply at this time. Our company, National Asset Recovery Specialists limited, currently owns 5 pieces of specialized equipment to recycle the Styrofoam to the point where the manufacturer can use it. So far we have invested close to $500,000.00 in equipment and processing facilities in North Bay Ontario and will soon open another facility in Ottawa. This equipment can reduce 75 truckloads of landfilled EPS into one truckload of recycled material, resulting in Zero Waste. Most waste management operators consider their costs in cubic meters. No waste manager has ever closed the landfill because it was too heavy. They are closed, because of the volume overflowing the area Stewardship Ontario who have millions of dollars garnered from the producers of solid waste packaging have not worked with us on the Styrofoam issue. Recycling in Canada's largest province is in an expensive shambles. Top heavy with consultants and administrators. They tend to stick to the status quo and whatever worked years ago works now. Unfortunately the recycling industry continually evolves and Ontario needs to keep pace.

Loaded and ready to be made into Crown Mouldings. This one trailer represents 75 loose trailers going to a land fill