Dive Brief:
- At the beginning of 2015, New York City banned expanded polystyrene from curbside collections.
- The City of New York Department of Sanitation (DSNY) said that before making its decision to implement the ban, the department spoke extensively with consultants and corporations. It was determined that expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam could not be recycled.
- Another deciding factor under consideration was that there is simply no market for recycling EPS materials.
Dive Insight:
Even after assurance from Dart Container Corporation that EPS was recyclable, the DSNY still had doubts. Internal documents illustrate that the department was not in agreement of the long-term viability of recycling polystyrene collected via residential pick-ups.
A letter from Kathryn Garcia, the DSNY commissioner, conveys the unwillingness of city leaders to put the infrastructure in place that would make the EPS recycling viable, citing that it would take too long to get the project underway.
Brandon Shaw, the marketing manager at Plastics Recycling, Inc. (PRI), the Indianapolis, IN facility that was slated to recycle the EPS if the ban did not go through, commented that “Post-consumer foam is a growing market, there’s more demand for it than there ever has been.” According to Shaw, the plant recycles 60 million pounds of EPS annually.
