Expanded polystyrene, or Styrofoam, can be disposed of in an eco-friendly manner by Eugene residents according to the Saint Vincent De Paul Society of Lane County's Styrofoam recycling program.

St. Vincent De Paul is Eugene's only recycler of #6 designated Styrofoam blocks, according to a business representative. Any St. Vincent De Paul donation center is where people of Lane County can recycle their Styrofoam. Their website lists the locations for donations. 

According to Terry McDonald, Emeritus Director of St. Vincent De Paul, "ironically, Styrofoam, which everyone thinks of as a real nuisance, is actually one of the very few really 100% recyclable products out in the marketplace." The important thing to understand clearly is that styrofoam can be considered almost 100% non-degradable, but it is indeed 100% recyclable and can even be recycled many times.

Styrofoam is also known as expanded polystyrene, which also shows the special properties of this material. Only by properly preprocessing this material to make it reach a certain volume can it reach the most suitable state for recycling. More and more companies and non-profit organizations are beginning to use styrofoam compactor to reduce the volume of waste first. The main purpose of this step is to reduce the transportation costs required during the recycling process. The funds that need to be invested in the recycling process are very important for both for-profit and non-profit organizations. The type of waste that Styrofoam compactor can recycle is not only expanded polystyrene, but also a variety of foam plastics. The compression ratio can reach 50:1.

After the styrofoam compactor compresses and expands polystyrene, the resulting styrofoam blocs can be made into plastic particles, and these plastic particles will be added in proportion to make new rigid plastic products. Currently, GREENMAX is constantly developing new equipment, not only expansion foam compression equipment such as styrofoam compactor, but also our plastic shredder that can crush hard plastics. After crushing, these hard plastics can also be granulated and reused. This is what we mentioned above, waste Styrofoam can not only be recycled once!

As a valuable recycled material, we should truly include it in the resource cycle!