It is commonly seen on a recycling company’s web that polystyrene is divided, together with batteries and packing peanuts, into a category of hard to recycle items. Some even regard it as unrecyclable. Is recycling polystyrene really so hard? Kind of, yes.
Lack of awareness
Many people take polystyrene as unrecyclable. Even some know it can be recycled. After several attempts to ask recyclers to pick it up but fail, they give up and take no regard of it any more.
Lack of amount
For recycling to be cost effective and feasible, recyclers will need a large amount of material. Recycling is measured and valued by the ton. For an ordinary recycler, he needs to pick up material at every household. Polystyrene is so light and bulky that an ordinary truck can barely load much of it, which can cause an extra cost for transport it, especially in scarcely populated areas like North Dakota and Montana. It is hard to collect much amount to make recycling of it cost effective.
Lack of technology
There are recyclers who see the opportunity to make profit by recycling polystyrene but they know little about how to start. They may know a limited source of polystyrene but do not know exactly how to expand. They may have large sources of polystyrene but do not know how to choose the most suitable equipment to run this business since they will need a polystyrene denfisier to compress the loose polystyrene in order to get a fair price.
Polystyrene is hard to recycle but it can be surely recycled and can bring profit. Publicity is required for people who lack of awareness and a professional consultant agent is needed for providing the most specific advice for the recyclers.