Styrofoam Collection Weekend

Bainbridge Island Zero Waste and Bay Hay and Feed team up twice a year (in January and July) to offer the community a chance to recycle their Styrofoam packaging, coolers, peanuts, CDs and DVDs.

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Safeway will be helping us at the next collection by providing a truck for transport of the Styro-filled bags to their recycling facility in Auburn, where they have a densifier that chops up and melts the Styrofoam. They then sell the solidified blocks to plastics processors.

Styrofoam must be…

• REMOVE ALL TAPE and STICKERS from blocks and coolers
• clean
• dry
• white
• snappable
• #6 EPS polystyrene packaging blocks or coolers
• Styrofoam food trays of all colors are allowed if clean, except for no tan trays — they are made from corn starch and can go in T&C’s compost bins.
• Bag the peanuts (may be mixed with compostable peanuts) – no debris in the bag.
• No hot tubs or hot tub covers
• No pink or blue insulation foam
• No foil-covered foam
• No Insta-pak foam

CDs and DVDs

Must be loose — no cases.

A donation is requested to defray the cost of bags and transport. We appreciate any amount that you give. Your generous donations have made this quite a fundraiser for our Zero Waste community give-backs. Thank you!

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This event, now in its tenth year, would never have been possible without the participation of Howard Block, owner of Bay Hay and Feed. His store is our host site, and over the years, he has trucked hundreds of bags of the Styro we collect to Styro Recycle in Kent on regular business trips to the area.

The disks are sent to GreenDisk.

THANK YOU TO OUR COLLABORATORS:
Bay Hay and Feed – host, provider of used bags
Safeway – new transporter of filled bags and provider of new bags
UCB Biosciences – sponsor
Kitsap Solid Waste – provider of holding boxes

Our collection is run by ALL VOLUNTEERS — more than 50 individuals help over the weekend. If you or your friends and family can lend a hand to snap and bag Styrofoam at the next collection, please let us know at bizerowaste@sustainablebainbridge.org

See the report of our January 2020 collection here.