Styrofoam recycling program comes to CT

WINSTED — Mayor Todd Arcelaschi cut the ribbon stretched in front of a huge pile of Styrofoam, as citizens of New Hartford, Barkhamsted and Winchester, members of the Board of Regional Refuse Disposal District No. 1, and elected state officials cheered the arrival of Connecticut’s first Styrofoam recycling program at the Municipal Transfer Station.

RRDD1 is partnering with FOAMCYCLE LLC. from Sussex County, N.J. Arcelaschi is also the Administrator of the municipal transfer station of RRDD1. He has his finger on the pulse of innovation and seeks solutions for the massive waste management challenges in Connecticut. Arcelaschi wrote, “With the July 1, 2024, ban of single use Styrofoam containers at schools, universities and restaurants in Connecticut, this effort will help reduce even further the amount of Styrofoam that makes its way into landfills.”

The gleaming $85,000 machine crushes the Styrofoam refuse that is stored in giant white nylon bags. The material is crushed up, the air which makes up 98% of Styrofoam is extracted, the densifier melts the chopped-up bits, and a tube of pliable, recycled polystyrene is extruded out the side of the metal box and formed into “foam ingots.” The ingots are shipped offsite to make its end products: surfboards, HVAC panels and filters. Styrofoam is a trademarked brand made by DuPont company for a product commonly called blue board. It’s a foam building insulation board used in walls, roofs, and foundations as a thermal insulator.

Winsted Town Manager Paul Harrington and mascot Buster Foam celebrating Connecticut’s first styrofoam recycling program at the Barkhamsted municipal transfer station, RRDD1.Jennifer Almquist

Lou Troiano, inventor and founder of FOAMCYCLE, proudly showed a gilt, ornate frame. A Green Team of students from Montclair State University in N.J. has developed an innovative environmental program. They are marketing elegant picture frames made from the polystyrene ingots. If the frames break, they can be shipped back to BetterFrame.org to be recycled and made into new frames, which keeps this waste material out of landfills and waterways forever. It is truly a closed-loop circular-economy recycling product.

Troiano said that the demand for the extruded ingots is high. The buyback rate is $800 per ton, or approximately $4 per pound. (Ingot values are determined by location, grade, weight, volume and current market values.)

To date, FOAMCYCLE programs are in 30 locations in New Jersey, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Quebec, Canada, and now Connecticut.

Currently, 11,344,365 people can recycle their foam packaging from electronics, TVs, furniture packaging, foam coolers, and food service foam such as cups, clamshell containers, egg cartons and meat trays free of food debris. Arcelaschi emphasized that the Styrofoam to be recycled must be brought to the recycling center, not placed in roadside pick-up.

On Earth Day, 2024, FOAMCYCLE was featured on NBC News. In the words of its singing, dancing mascot, Buster Foam, who demonstrated how to use the system to the curious crowd in Barkhamsted, “Bring it to Buster Foam, Buster’s here to save the day.”