A non-profit coalition in North Carolina, named Tiny House Community Development, collects Styrofoam from local people to build houses for the homeless ones. For people who are frustrated, like losing their jobs or having accidents, this program helps them out of trouble by recycling and reusing Styrofoam.



The Tiny House Community Development coalition has been working on this program for more than two years. It witnessed great achievements in solving people’s living problems in this period. The coalition sets regular recycling events to recycle Styrofoam from people around Guilford County and surrounding areas. The coalition sells the collected Styrofoam to companies that make them into new products. The coalition then buys these products back at a discount and eventually uses them to build small houses. Also, the program provides jobs for local people, creating more opportunities.



The Styrofoam recycling process is not as difficult as someone may think. As technology grows, Styrofoam recycling is rather simple by mechanical methods. Usually, Styrofoam compactors and densifiers are the most common machines in use. The collected Styrofoam will be put into the containers of machines and then cut into pieces. After that, the machine will compress the Styrofoam into blocks or heat them into ingots, which can be made into new products, such as Styrofoam insulation, Styrofoam boards, house decorations, and so on.



The program is not a short-term one. Years of effort have solved people's immediate problems from practice. In addition, this project has helped many people to develop and plan their own future, which fully reflects the humanistic concern. As you can see, recycling Styrofoam not only protects the environment, but also directly benefits people themselves. INTCO will always do its own part in serving people and serving the environment.