Do you practice recycling in your home? Do you separate your rubbish into paper, food, plastic and glass? When products from all these categories come together in a public landfill, their decomposition periods being different, they will all take longer periods of time to break down naturally than they would, if placed separately. This means that landfills would fill up a little faster than they would if the products were separated relatively well. What if someone told you that the United Kingdom’s landfills are expected to reach maximum capacity in ten years at the most—and that’s being extremely conservative—? What if that same someone told you the last sentence you read is absolutely true? Go ahead and check your favorite search engine if you’re having trouble believing it, but it’s absolutely true. Better yet, keep reading to see how you can do your part by helping that happen.

 

All this being said, it’s even more shocking to learn that the true culprit for the UK landfill’s fast-depleting sizes is actually your to-go coffee cup--or, rather, the material it’s made from, Polystyrene. Polystyrene is a thermoplastic derived from petroleum, which also has the effect of making it highly flammable, by the way. It’s insulating attributes, resistance to water and heat and the cheap price of producing it make Polystyrene and EPS (Expanded Polystyrene) the favorite material of many industries, including the restaurant industry, the construction industry and the furniture industry. Polystyrene is a very light, as it comprises a lot of air, a property which leads to it being difficult to transport because it’s bulky (the same attribute which is leading to the gradual fill of UK landfills). Most importantly to the question of the landfills, Polystyrene does not decompose naturally (or, at least, it hasn’t so far since was first manufactured in the year 1930).

 

Many people seem to think that recycling Polystyrene is especially cumbersome and rather expensive. And, perhaps fifteen years ago that would have been true. Many recycling centers which usually handle plastics still pass on Polystyrene recycling because the material is very difficult to clean, and because it needs to be incinerated in specialized burners, to prevent the release of toxic elements in the air. However, recent years have seen the creation of specialized Polystyrene recycling companies, and some of these companies go as far as to offer their Polystyrene recycling for free to individuals and businesses alike. Moreover, they offer businesses the added Polystyrene recycling service of prearranging EPS waste pick-up.

 

If you live in the UK, recycling Polystyrene is neither difficult, nor expensive. In fact, recycling Polystyrene is actually cheaper than having it taken to a landfill, especially if you run a business which collects a lot of the material. In this case you can seek out a specialized company like PolyMelt. Polymelt has a free collection service for businesses looking to recycle their Polystyrene waste, which makes it quite unique and attractive.  If as few as one out of 4 British people started recycling Polystyrene, the UK’s landfills would get another few dozen years before becoming a source or concern again.

Learn more about why it’s better to practice Polystyrene recycling by joining forces with PolyMelt instead of dumping it in the landfill and see how you can do your part in recycling Polystyrene to help protect the environment for the generations to come.