Machine gives foam cups, plates new life

Imagine crushing a small car made of foam into a five-gallon pail.

Sound like a weird high school science project?

It's actually what officials at Maryville Academy in Des Plaines plan to do with thousands of pounds of foam products yearly.

Maryville Academy this week launched a new initiative to recycle foam cups, plates and hinged food containers used in the cafeteria of its two campuses with a machine called a densifier.

The effort is in partnership with Michigan-based Dart Container Corp., a manufacturer of foam cups, to divert such non-biodegradable products from landfills.

"We're going to recycle about 700,000 pieces a year," said Gloria Gonzalez, Maryville's purchasing director. "We can (also) recycle all outside coffee cups through this program. I'm not sure that we're going to save any money. This is really more to be environmentally responsible."

Maryville presently recycles cardboard and paper, and is moving toward recycling aluminum cans and plastic, and using green chemicals or consumable products, she said.

Polystyrene foam products can be recycled into picture frames, plastic lumber, building insulation, CD cases and flower pots.

Maryville is the only agency in Illinois to use a foam densifier for recycling, said Michael Westerfield, corporate director of recycling programs for Dart Container Corp.

The agency is leasing the machine, which is being housed at the Scott Nolan Center in Des Plaines, at a price less than half of what it costs to haul away used foam products, Westerfield said.

The densifier, manufactured by Dart, is designed to compact mounds of foam in minutes. It contains a cylindrical hydraulic ram that pounds the memory or air pockets out of the foam, Westerfield said.

"It's kind of like a Play-Doh machine," Westerfield said. "This does the same thing except the end is closed so the foam keeps getting smashed. If you filled up a semi truck with loose foam, you could only get about 1,000 pounds and that truck's going to be full. Once it goes through a densifier, you can put anywhere from 30,000 to 40,000 pounds."

Westerfield hopes the program will catch on with Illinois businesses, schools and other institutions with large scale food-service operations using Dart's foam products.

"A large business that has a big corporate cafeteria or something, it's ideal for them," he said. "Customers have chosen this in the past. They want to recycle and we are the only option."

Foam densifiers -large enough to fill a car parking space - are available for purchase for roughly $15,000, which may be a more feasible option for large corporations over leasing, Westerfield said.

"It sounds like a lot, but when you look at what foam cups cost them, (companies) can cost justify this pretty fast," he said.

Westerfield said he hopes Illinois counties will soon start foam drop-off programs similar to Michigan and that municipalities will begin curbside recycling of foam products as is done in parts of California.

"In Michigan, we've been recycling this since 1990," he said. "In 2007, we collected about 106 tons of post consumer foam. Last year, we received 200 tons. We didn't do anything different. There's a greater appetite to recycling things than there was in the past."

Dart will begin accepting drop offs of foam products to be recycled for free at its North Aurora manufacturing facility by year-end. The facility is located at 310 Evergreen Drive. For information, call (630) 896-4631.