Robin Clark, global sustainability director at Just Eat, said the UK takeaway industry uses around 500 million single-use takeaway packaging and containers every year. But consumers just treat them as general trash, sending most of them to landfills, and polystyrene is among them because it’s thought to be inefficient at actual recycling.
Takeaway containers, including items such as polystyrene boxes, polystyrene trays, and plastic containers, are not biodegradable and will remain in nature for a long time. Compared with other plastic products, polystyrene foam is very light but has a large volume because 95% of its volume is composed of air, so it is difficult to collect in large quantities. A 53-foot-long polystyrene truck only weighs 2 or 3,000 pounds. Therefore, the collection, transportation, and storage costs of foam are very high, which is the main reason why some recyclers and businesses are unwilling to recycle it. However, polystyrene itself is an excellent material, with good waterproof, fall resistance, and shock absorption functions and low cost. Quite a few retail stores, food suppliers, and hotels choose to use foam packaging and containers, but they cannot properly recycle used foam, which causes the problem of “white pollution”.
However, the problems that most businesses and governments struggle with can be solved by using polystyrene recycling machines. Generally speaking, the service life of a machine varies depending on the situation. GREENMAX, belonging to INTCO Recycling, is an expert in the recycling industry. When you use GREENMAX polystyrene recycling machine, the common problems of high transportation costs and labor costs in recycling will be solved. After being compressed by this machine, the waste polystyrene can not only enter the next stage of recycling but also help the company earn some profits. The GREENMAX machine will compress loose foam to one-fiftieth or one-ninth of its original volume, making transportation and warehousing efficient. In some countries and areas there is a situation of shortage or high costs of labor. The GREENMAX machine only requires one person to complete the entire compression process. Moreover, the machine has a high degree of automation and an automatic cutting function. It can cut a long continuous compressed polystyrene into blocks, which is convenient for manual handling and helps enterprises and governments reduce costs. At the same time, INTCO provides repurchase services, we accept polystyrene waste from all over the world, if you don’t want to spend energy looking for downstream buyers, you can sell the waste directly to us.
INTCO has helped customers around the world achieve their goals of polystyrene recycling and environmental protection, and will always be committed to global foam recycling. If you have any foam questions, please contact us.