Remove The Polystyrene From Your Life For A Better, Greener, & Healthier Existence
Written by Erin Patterson - Saturday, 24 January 2009
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 Mull this over for a bit: Americans throw away 25 billion polystyrene cups every year. Just imagine all of that garbage piling up in landfills, washing up on beaches, and littering our parks, streets, streams, forests, and oceans.
And that is just cups—it doesn’t include the host of other products made of polystyrene, like take-out containers, plates, and packaging. Pretty sickening, isn’t it? This article will help you understand the negatives to polystyrene so you can help make our planet a better, greener place by choosing eco friendly alternatives.
What is polystyrene?
Polystyrene is a polymer made from the aromatic monomer styrene, a liquid hydrocarbon commercially manufactured from petroleum (something we need to drastically reduce our reliance on). That’s awfully technical. The polystyrene you are likely most familiar with looks like rigid white foam. It’s commonly used as packing or insulation, e.g., packing peanuts, lunch trays, take out containers, cups.
Just a factoid for you: polystyrene and Styrofoam are not one in the same. Styrofoam is a trademarked material from the Dow Chemical Company. Dow Chemical does not manufacture cups, plates, egg cartons, or other food packaging commonly made of polystyrene that you might use.
Where is polystyrene found?
Polystyrene is found in a startling number of places. It’s most commonly used in packaging for insulation and to prevent fragile items from damage during transportation. However, it is also found in food packaging, like foam cups for your coffee or soda, foam clamshells that hold your burgers, "doggie bags" (read: foam containers) for leftovers, salad boxes, foam egg cartons, disposable utensils, packaging, foam inserts to cushion appliances and electronics, television and computer cabinets, and even compact disc cases.
Many national coffee houses, restaurants, and fast food chains have gotten away from using polystyrene, but it still has a place at many stores, restaurants, and cafeterias, as food packaging.
Is polystyrene bad for our health?
The basic chemical component of the polystyrene has the potential to leach into your food, a process called styrene migration, and then into your body. Studies have suggested the main chemical component used to make polystyrene mimics estrogen in the body to disrupt normal hormone function. Long term exposure to styrene can lead to thyroid problems. It can also contribute to forming breast or prostate cancer.
Long-term exposure to small quantities of styrene is also suspected of causing low platelet counts or hemoglobin values; neurotoxic effects due to styrene accumulation in the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerve tissues, resulting in nervousness, anxiety, fatigue, difficulty sleeping, and other acute or chronic nervous system problems; and lymphatic and chromosomal abnormalities.
In fact, if you drink beverages from polystyrene cups four times daily over three years, you could consume approximately one foam cup's worth of styrene along with your tasty beverages. Styrene also appears to migrate more quickly when foods or drinks are hot. Makes you want to put down that cup of hot coffee, doesn’t it?
Styrene migration is also partially dependent on the fat content of the food stored in the polystyrene containers. The higher the fat content, the more significant is the migration into the food. Entrees, soups, or beverages with a higher fat content, like cheesy chili or fettuccini alfredo, suck more of the styrene out of the polystyrene container than water would. Other compounds found in beverages, like the acids found in tea with lemon or alcohol, may also increase the styrene migration rate.
More solid foods, like meat, cheese, fruits, or veggies, packaged on a clear-plastic-wrapped polystyrene tray can pick up styrene from the foam container.
What makes it bad for the Earth?
Polystyrene is largely unrecyclable. The 25 billion unrecyclable cups float their way into the oceans and wash up on shores to pollute our beaches or they sit in a landfill for over 500 years because they are not biodegradable.
Polystyrene food service packaging, specifically, is generally not recycled. Presently, this is due to a lack of consumer awareness regarding suitable recycling facilities and methods. However, the good news is that more and more recycling facilities are beginning to pop up, but this takes time.
Discarded polystyrene is not biodegradable and it’s resistant to photolysis (the chemical reaction where a chemical compound is broken down by photons). The foamed forms of polystyrene float and blow in the wind, making them abundant in the outdoors, particularly along the water. The California Coastal Commission has reported polystyrene as a principal contributor of marine debris. Like humans, polystyrene may also be harmful to wild animals if they ingest it or have prolonged exposure to it.
Because of the way polystyrene is made, it can pose a flammability hazard in both manufacturing and storage of newly manufactured material. Forms of extruded polystyrene have effects on ozone depletion and global warming 1000 times greater than carbon dioxide.
Polystyrene does have some alternative uses and it can be transformed into other things. For instance, expanded polystyrene can be used to make park benches, toys, and flower pots.
Recently though, manufacturers in the United States have begun making and marketing recycled expanded polystyrene as building materials like crown molding, trim, lumber substitutes, and decking. Recycled polystyrene is used in many metal casting operations. It can be combined with cement to be used as insulation in the making of concrete foundations.
How do I avoid using polystyrene?
You can start by BYO. That is, bring your own container! Wash and reuse your mugs, BPA-free water bottles, and glass or ceramic containers (plastics have been found to leach chemicals, like BPA, into foods and beverages). Use ceramic or glass plates, bowls, and mugs/cups whenever possible. This is particularly important for foods and beverages with medium to high fat content, alcohol or acidic substances, and hot (heated) foods and beverages. If you can't use ceramic plates, bowls, and mugs/cups, choose paper over polystyrene. Recycle the used paper products whenever possible.
Avoid purchasing food and beverage items in polystyrene whenever possible. For supermarket items in polystyrene packaging, transfer them to a non-plastic container until you're ready to use them. Glass, ceramic, or porcelain containers, bowls or plates are preferable for food storage (so chemicals from plastic food containers don’t leach into your food).
Purchase food in glass containers whenever you can. For items not packaged in glass, purchase larger sizes to reduce the surface contact between the contents to the container. Buying in bulk, so to speak, is also easier on the wallet!
Keep your eyes peeled for eco-friendly alternatives to polystyrene packaging. Avoid using polystyrene when shipping personal packages. Wrap fragile items in plastic bags to be reused or paper to be reused or recycled. Companies, like Starchtech, are also beginning to manufacture eco friendly alternatives to polystyrene.
There you have it.
You are now armed with ways to protect yourself against and prevent the use of polystyrene. By curbing and ceasing your use of polystyrene, you are indirectly helping to keep it out of the great outdoors, literally littering our parks, beaches, forests, meadows, lakes, oceans, and bays. Go forth to be better, greener, and polystyrene-free!
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