Dive Brief:
- Commerce City, CO-based Alpine Waste and Recycling is now the first recycling company in the Denver area to begin accepting polystyrene foam, or Styrofoam.
- The Food Packaging Institute awarded Alpine with a $45,000 grant, allowing Alpine to purchase a machine that compresses the foam into bricks. The compression allows the foam to be easily transported and recycled in bulk.
- Alpine is also working with local businesses to alleviate the abundance of foam packaging material that they may have. These materials include egg cartons, meat trays, and take-out containers.
Dive Insight:
Alpine's new machinery is part of a recent $5 million upgrade of Alpine's Altogether Recycling Plant, which added all new equipment from Machinex. The upgrade increased the facility's flow-through capacity by 150%.
The ability to recycle Styrofoam gives Alpine Waste and Recycling an enormous advantage in the industry. The difficulty associated with recycling Styrofoam has left many municipalities banning the product to keep it out of the landfill. However, according to Dart Container, Styrofoam is thermoplastic, meaning that it is completely recyclable — if the proper facilities and machinery are available.
"This foam material has caused problems in the waste-processing industry because it takes up so much space in landfills and it take so long to degrade," said Alpine Waste and Recycling President John Griffith in a press release. "We’re thrilled to lead the way in Colorado’s efforts to address this problem."
