Dealing with it is a pain. Part of what makes food containers so difficult to recycle is that they are generally contaminated and require cleaning before they can be processed.

When this material is burned, it creates a toxic ash. If it’s landfilled, the stuff never breaks down.

With the holiday season especially, there’s an avalanche of it surrounding gifts. Polystyrene’s blessings are also a curse- its light weight and durability make it such a great packaging material, but this packaging is being recycled at a low rate of only about 10-12% each year.

Please recycle your clean, dry block foam.

Most of us refer to this product as Styrofoam; however, Styrofoam is actually a trademark name.

This You Tube video explains the difference between Styrofoam and Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qSSchUSbyY