Polystyrene - Put in the yellow recycling bin or not?

I have news!  I sent an email to the Recycling department here in Menorca asking if polystyrene can be recycled here. I received an answer back and they said that trays made from polystyrene such as the ones used in the supermarkets can be placed in the yellow bin. I took it that they meant only this form of Polystyrene can be recycled at this present time here.

This is what they wrote to me

"These types of trays are recycled in the yellow container for containers and usually have a symbol like this on the bottom."

I have looked into this further and have found some information about this,

"The food industry often employ polystyrene in food protection and service, due to it’s clean, light and ‘easily disposable’ nature. Psychologically, the lack of weight and strength makes disposal less objectionable to humans, and this is one reason polystyrene recycling rates are so low. As well as the lesser known uses of polystyrene mentioned early, it is also used for children’s car seats, life jackets, small boats and pizza trays.

It’s almost impossible to say how much polystyrene the earth generates and disposes of each day, and nobody tracks the data anyhow. What is known, is that due to its impressive size-to-weight ratio, polystyrene may take up to 30% of the space in a landfill, whilst only providing 0.1% of the weight. It’s often suggested that energy recovery from incineration is a better end-of-life for contaminated polystyrene than landfill, and we have to agree.

Although of course, polystyrene recycling is the optimal waste treatment, and it’s not as difficult as you’d think. In fact, you can take several chunks of polystyrene of all different shapes and sizes, and using a recycling machine which operates with steam and compression, you can mould it into briquettes. These briquettes are the perfect shape to be transported and sold to companies who need them. 

EPS (Expanded Polystyrene) processed through a briquette machine. This material has an EXCELLENT re-sale value. Polystyrene recycling at work."

 

So it would appear that on the face of it that it is easier to recycle polystyrene than other forms of plastic. However at the end of the day it is still part of the plastic family and I will still try to avoid buying anything in a tray when I go food shopping.

So here on Menorca we can recycle anything with the letters PET, HDPE and PS or those microscopic triangles containing the numbers 1,2 and 6. 

I now know a little more about plastic than I did before! I hope you do too!

The blog song of today is:  "Hotel California" by the Eagles, one of my all time favourites.

TTFN