Outagamie County recycles 5,200 pounds of polystyrene foam but has no plans to add more drop-off sites
Reader question: Is Outagamie County planning to do more to recycle Styrofoam? It bought a foam densifier, but it’s certainly not worth one’s time and gas to drive Styrofoam to the machine. Can additional collection sites be set up, similar to how grocery stores collect plastic bags?
Answer: Outagamie County purchased a $75,000 polystyrene foam densifier — nicknamed the Foam Dome — in November from Foam Cycle of New Jersey. The county secured a $50,000 grant from the Food Service Packaging Institute to offset the cost.
The densifier is located at Outagamie County's Resource Recovery Park at 1919 Holland Road in Appleton. Consumers are encouraged to drop off Styrofoam and other expandable polystyrene foam for recycling. There's no charge.
The setup isn't part of the Tri-County Recycling curbside collection program but a separate supplement to it.
In the first six months of operation, the densifier processed 5,200 pounds of polystyrene foam, keeping the material out of the landfill and transforming it into plastic ingots for sale on the market.
"They will recycle it into things like picture frames and baseboards," said Alex Nett, recycling and resource recovery administrator for Outagamie County Recycling and Solid Waste. "I've heard examples such as surfboards as well."
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At this point, Outagamie County has no plans to expand the polystyrene foam recycling to other drop-off sites throughout the county.
Such a move would require the purchase of additional densifiers to handle the volume, Nett said.
"We would have to invest in a lot of other equipment between storage for the product going into the machine and the product coming out of the machine as well," she said.
That doesn't mean other communities and organizations in the area couldn't follow Outagamie County's lead and apply for grants to purchase their own densifiers.
Before November, Outagamie County officials directed people to a densifier in Fond du Lac.
Clean polystyrene foam can be brought to the Resource Recovery Park from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. weekdays and from 7 a.m. to noon Saturdays. It's not an acceptable material for curbside recycling in Outagamie, Winnebago and Brown counties.
Post-Crescent reporter Duke Behnke answers your questions about local government. Send questions to dbehnke@gannett.com or call him at 920-993-7176.
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This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Outagamie County offers single drop-off site for recycling Styrofoam
