Life Cycle: Styrofoam: Mark of the Plastic Beast

Life Cycle is a series of posts that looks at the life and death of everyday things.

Your Styrofoam lunch container of Mooshu pork is labeled with the recycling number 6, a digit with evil connotations. Coincidence?

Styrofoam is one of the most infamous environmental villains, to be sure.

This highly durable spawn of the 20th century, also known as polystyrene, is manufactured using benzene, from coal; styrene, from petroleum; and ethylene, a "blowing agent" used in the process since the crackdown on CFCs. Extracting these raw materials generates air and water pollution, and the process of whipping them together can lead to lung cancer and neurological problems in factory workers.

(When we hear about a health advantage of working in a factory, we'll let you know.)

As for you, chow time with Styrofoam could mean ingesting a bit of styrene with your rice. Research on whether polystyrene chemicals "migrate" from container to food is hotly debated, but it's a fact that styrene has been present in our fatty tissue and breast milk for the past 30 years. We might not be clear on what that means yet, but it can't be yummy for baby.

Like all plastics, polystyrene is non-biodegradable, meaning remnants of your Chinese takeout will be chilling on planet Earth long after your great-grandchildren and possibly Brangelina coverage are dead and gone. Even after a take-out container has dissolved 500 years from now, its chemical components will still clog the eco-system. Polystyrene's bulky foreverness accounts for one-quarter of our landfill waste. While Styrofoam is recyclable, most curbside recycling programs don't support anything with the mark of the 6 due to the high cost associated with breaking them down.

As always, our glimmer-of-hope conclusion: EcoFoam, made from cornstarch, is 100% biodegradable and increasingly present in containers, packing peanuts, insulation and other traditionally Styrofoam products. And Blue Earth Solutions has an ambitious curbside pickup program called Foam From Home (they convert the stuff into a recyclable gel). Several cities in California have cast out the plastic devil altogether. Get thee gone, Styrofoam.

Next, we'll look at the stuff of your after-work hours and make it a Blockbuster night.

This post was written by Sarah Smarsh and Simran Sethi . Thanks to the University of Kansas School of Journalism, Heather Mueller and Lacey Johnston for research assistance and Archie McPhee for the image.

Comments

[carol58]

I am so happy you are giving a nod to biodegradable foam containers. The University of Kansas is switching out all it's takeout contains from the everlasting Styrofoam to the biodegradable kind, and I was worried they would have a catch, too. It was painful for me to get carryout salad on a Styrofoam plate and cover it with a plastic lid.

[elephantwaylon]

Nice comment, Lindsey Wolf!

[Sarah Smarsh - Huffpost Blogger]

mc, thanks for highlighting the point of this blog-- heightened awareness of consumption. To paraphrase an adage, no styrofoam is good news.

[m2c]

i have seen with my own eyes the amount of plastic that is produced at a chemical plant here in tokyo. we are talking tons , and tons of the stuff. yet our cravings for cheap goods, and cheap packaging continues to produce even more of the stuff. I have yet to see the cornstarch based plastics here in japan.

this one is not a case of LETS recycle it, we def need to reduce it to ZERO.

we got to convince people that in the long run it will save money. thats the only was to get to most people is though there wallets.

[lindseywolf]

Glad to hear that EcoFoam is being worked into containers. My latest syrofoam nightmare came during a visit home a few weeks ago to suburban Boston. I went to Dunkin' Donuts with my sister and was apalled and surprised that they are still serving coffee in styrofoam cups! Interestingly, all of their espresso drinks are fair trade certified and served in Starbucks-esque paper cups. But the regular coffee came in that familiar-looking styrofoam. I believe they have been sourcing fair trade beans for their espresso for a number of years and only began marketing it as such as fair trade begins to take off. Let's hope they get somewhere with the cups now soon!

[PTLafferty]

I'm with Ajita on this one: corn is no solution. But thank you for pointing out 1) the dangers of styro and 2) the stupidity of curbside programs that won't actually recycle many recyclables. Whether it is styrofoam or the suddenly "too dangerous" glass recycling, these curbside programs are less about making the environment better and more about citizens paying for the privilege of providing raw materials to industry.

[Ajita]

This certainly is an underrepresented issue in the whole eco-debate. On four separate occasions this summer I was at a gathering where they had disposable styrofoam coolers for beer. This is despicable.
I'm thinking that "eco-foam" may not be so eco-friendly if we're clearing land to grow corn but if the corn starch is a by-product then its alright. A lot of "alternatives" that require corn and other bio-sources are not really eco-friendly because they promote the clearing of natural biodiversity to create mono-culture dead-zones. Lets hope that the recycling programs get better at handling this stuff, until we can find real alternatives.
I'm with San Fransisco on this one- "Say No to Styro"