A team of chemical engineers in the United States and the United Kingdom is developing a polystyrene chemical recycling process. This is done by breaking down the waste foam into its original components through pyrolysis and forming new materials, which can effectively increase the polystyrene recycling rate.

There are usually two ways to recycle polystyrene foam, including chemical recycling and mechanical recycling. The chemical recycling method involves breaking down waste polystyrene into monomers and purifying them in an oxygen-free chamber at temperatures above 450 degrees Celsius. These monomers can then be used to make new polystyrene foam or other environmentally friendly plastic products. Mechanical recycling is to compact and granulate the waste foam through polystyrene compactor and foam pelletizer to turn the foam into recyclable PS particles. Since polystyrene is composed of 98% air and 2% plastic, it is large in size and light in weight, and is not suitable for long-distance transportation by trucks or containers. Polystyrene compactor is a device specially used to reduce the volume of foam, compacting the foam at a high ratio to improve the efficiency of transportation and storage space management.

Polystyrene recycling organizations or governments will subsidize communities and businesses to recycle foam, and this additional money is usually used to purchase and install a polystyrene compactor. The collected foam is placed in the polystyrene compactor and compacted into dense foam blocks. These foam blocks can be sold to foam recyclers or manufacturers for further recycling. Polystyrene recycling is actually an investment project with economic and environmental benefits. It only requires an investment in a polystyrene compactor to carry out, and it can effectively reduce environmental pollution and establish the company's environmental protection ESG image. GREENMAX polystyrene compactor Apolo Series compresses the foam at a ratio of 50:1 through physical extrusion of the screw. It has low energy consumption and high material compatibility, and can process a variety of foams such as EPS, XPS, EPP, etc.

Large pieces of foam are thrown into the feed port of the GREENMAX polystyrene compactor, where they are first broken into 10mm-20mm pieces by the screw crusher. In order to facilitate the subsequent compaction, the polystyrene compactor is equipped with a fragment filter in the crushing bin, so that only the pieces that meet the size can fall into the compaction bin, and the remaining pieces will be broken again. In the compaction bin, the strong squeezing of the screw will compact the polystyrene fragments into dense foam blocks and continuously transport the foam out. The GREENMAX polystyrene compactor is equipped with a disc device to detect whether the material is melted and to activate the automatic cutting function. When the screw transports the formed foam blocks out, the disc will continue to rotate. After one and a half or two turns, the polystyrene compactor's cutter will fall and cut the foam. If the disc stops rotating, it means that there may be melted material inside the machine, which needs to be checked and cooled down. In addition, because the polystyrene compactor uses the screw compression principle, it can also handle water-containing foam, such as fish boxes, vegetable and fruit boxes, etc.

GREENMAX provides a one-stop polystyrene recycling solution. In addition to professional polystyrene compactors, we also provide foam block sales solutions. GREENMAX will granulate it into high-purity PS particles and make it into environmentally friendly wallboards, picture frames and other recycled products, which are loved by many consumers in the market. We offer a buy-back service at a favorable price or provide customers with other local sales channels to help them turn waste foam into treasure.