Whether you own a business or not, you’re likely to come into contact with EPS (Expanded Polystyrene, also called Styrofoam) on a day-to-day basis. Whether you’re taking your coffee to go one morning, getting lunch from a take-out restaurant, unpacking new furniture or electronic equipment, or even just sitting in your living room, you’re in contact with Styrofoam more than you imagine, and that’s because the material is used in numerous industries. If you have a business, you know very well—or can estimate—how much EPS waste your company creates on a yearly basis. Most people just send their Styrofoam waste to landfills across the UK, because it’s the easiest and most convenient thing to do, but do you know what the consequences of dumping Styrofoam in landfills are? Read on to find out more about why you should stop dumping your EPS waste into landfills and why you should start recycling Styrofoam instead and find out how easy and convenient Styrofoam recycling can really be, when you’re working with a great partner like PolyMelt.
Styrofoam is a very bulky material so when it is dumped into landfills it effectively takes up a lot of space. UK landfills are expected to fill up to maximum capacity by the year 2020 if dumping continues at present levels, which means that the United Kingdom will need to find other ways to dispose of its waste products. This might mean paying other countries with excess space to dump waste products in landfills abroad, which would increase waste management funding considerably. This projected increase in the price of waste disposal will trickle down to the population, and if nothing changes, before the next 10 years are up British citizens will have to pay a lot more than they ever have in the past to have their waste products disposed of.
Once Styrofoam gets dumped into landfills, it is there to stay. This is because, as far as anyone knows at the present time, Styrofoam either never decomposes naturally, or else the decomposition process takes hundreds of years to complete, time during which the petroleum-based product leaks toxic materials into the soil and groundwater. When you think about the fact that more than 35 million cubic meters of Styrofoam are dumped into UK landfills each and every year, you can start to see how recycling Styrofoam isn’t just a preference, but a necessity.
What if someone were to tell you that Styrofoam recycling can be just as easy or convenient as dumping it into the nearest landfill? Most people would have a hard time believing that recycling Styrofoam could be an easy thing to do, mainly because most companies which do recycle plastic products don’t get involved in Styrofoam recycling. Moreover, even if you can find a recycling company willing to do Styrofoam recycling for the EPS waste your business creates, you’d still have to manage transporting your waste to the recycling facility on your own. Since Styrofoam is so bulky, transport can prove to be a tough and expensive task, which again discourages many people from recycling Styrofoam. However, there are pioneer Styrofoam recycling companies in the UK, like PolyMelt, that offer businesses the convenience or pre-arranged pick-ups of EPS waste, free of charge, so you don’t have to worry about anything at all. So, when you’re working with a reliable company like PolyMelt you can take the stress out of Styrofoam recycling.
If you think recycling Styrofoam is too expensive or complicated for your business to undertake, think again. Find out why you should take up Styrofoam recycling for your business and start today.