Expanded polystyrene is a kind of packaging material with excellent performance and low price, which also involves many industries like medical, automotive, building materials, and food. But unfortunately, EPS is always used as a disposable packaging material.

Used foam packaging usually will be dumped in large quantities in landfills or incinerated, while EPS is difficult to degrade naturally and has caused great pollution to the environment and taken up a lot of space in landfills. Many people mistakenly believe that EPS foam packaging is disposable. They also don’t know whether EPS is recyclable and what EPS recycling methods can be carried out.

GREENMAX has been deeply involved in the field of foam recycling for more than ten years. Today, we answer two questions for you: Is EPS recyclable? And What are the specific EPS recycling methods?

Can EPS be recycled?

Undoubtedly, discarding used foam into landfills is a neglect of the recycled value of EPS and a waste of renewable resources. Currently, there are diverse practicable polystyrene recycling methods, including mechanical recycling, chemical recycling, and filling material recycling.

Mechanical recycling refers to converting foam waste into recycled PS particles through multiple steps, such as crushing, compressing, and granulation. It is suitable for most recycling scenarios. The whole EPS recycling involves foam recycling equipment like foam compactor and EPS granulator. Through the process of these foam recycling machines, foam packaging will be converted into particle form, which can be remade into diverse recycled products like outdoor decking, bicycle helmets, photo frames, and so on.

Chemical recycling refers to the decomposition of EPS foam into monomers or other chemical components through pyrolysis, solvent recovery, etc., which can be used as fuel or other new products. This polystyrene recycling method can handle severely contaminated foam, but it has high requirements for equipment and technology and is not suitable for small-scale or initial recycling companies.

In addition, discarded EPS packaging can be reused as filling materials, such as making sofa cushions, mattresses, pillows and other products. This method can directly use foam waste without complicated processing.

How to recycled EPS?

GREENMAX is concentrated on realizing EPS recycling through foam compactors, granulators, and other recycling machines. This mechanical recycling method is relatively simple and can be divided into several processing steps. Enterprises can choose one or several steps to perform foam recycling.

The entire EPS recycling process mainly includes collection, crushing, compaction, and re-granulation. GREENMAX EPS compactor integrates crushing and compaction functions into one machine, helping enterprises save machine costs.

The compacted foam blocks can be used by you or sold to downstream recyclers. Additionally, GREENMAX can also provide foam block sales solutions for our machine customers. We provide buyback services at a preferential price or provide customers with other local sales channels. GREENMAX wishes that establish a deep cooperative relationship with our customers and build a recycling business.

However, when selling foam blocks, you need to pay attention to the compression ratio of the foam compactor. Only equipment with a high compaction ratio can maximize transportation and storage efficiency, reduce costs and increase sales profits. GREENMAX EPS compactor Zeus Series is specially designed for foam recycling. It can handle a variety of materials such as EPS, EPP, EPE, etc., and one machine can be used for multiple purposes.

Moreover, the machine upgrades the surface hot melt technology based on the ordinary screw cold-press compactor, effectively preventing the foam blocks from rebounding from the inside and achieving an efficient volume reduction effect of 50:1.

Enterprises need to choose recycling equipment based on their own recycling scale, development plan, and available funds. Foam compactor mainly compresses foam, with small investment and considerable economic returns, which is suitable for all enterprises to invest. The granulator is a whole line equipment, with large investment, but greater profit margins.

If you are interested in EPS recycling, please leave a message and GREENMAX will design the most suitable foam recycling solution for you.