Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Recycling Styrofoam

Ever wonder what to do with those huge chunks of styrofoam packing materials that come in appliance or computer boxes? Someone on the stlbiking.com forum had the same question. Turns out, it is a little difficult to find resources who will take it for recycling, but not impossible.

Whole Foods will take your styrofoam while a lot of municipalities will not. There are currently two Whole Foods stores in the St. Louis area -- you can use their store finder to locate them.

7 comments:

Mistress of the Dorkness said...

wow... I did NOT know that. I knew I loved Whole Foods for a reason!

roo said...

I work for Whole Foods Market St. Louis, and we do NOT take styrafoam recycling. We also no longer take any other form of recycling due to space and labor constraints. Please refer to your local firehouse for styrafoam recycling and you can take any other recycling to Operation Brightside or QRS. Currently, we only have one Whole Foods loation in St. Louis, but look for our new store opening June 25 in Town and Country!

Unknown said...

I've just moved to the St. Louis area from London and SF and for over past 3 hours I've been trying to track down a place to take my Styrofoam. I'm disgusted at how difficult this process has been. After 15 phone calls Whole Foods, Best Buy, 4 Recycling Centers, Local Fire Stations, the United States Post Office, and etc....I finally found UPS!!!

Most UPS stores will take your Styrofoam whether it’s molded, sheets, or peanuts. You just need to bring your Styrofoam into the store and they break it down and resell it. I recommend calling the store beforehand just to be sure, but my local store was very accommodating and happy to take it. Cheers!! To a company who is actually helping the environment by allowing consumers to reuse products.

Boooo!!! To an overall community who is completely behind the times with regards to recycling. Personally, I’m voicing my frustration to the following organizations:
St. Louis Recycling Centers
Best Buy
Samsung
Kirkwood City Council

Can someone please shed some light as to why communities across our nation are able to have an effective recycling program but St. Louis is completely unable to be adequately support recycling efforts? What I’m trying to understand is it because people in this community are lazy, indifferent, and uneducated about recycling or is it because the companies/recycling centers don’t have the means to support recycling efforts? I just understand why this process is so difficult in this area and why people aren’t more frustrated with it?

… and please don’t say its because most people in this state are Republican cuz that’s a bunch of bologna!

Unknown said...

Sorry your recycling encounters were so difficult. Thanks for finding me a place to recycle my office syrofoam. I am a recent transplant here also and I was very upset too when there was no recycling in my townhouse complex nor the office building where I worked. Luckly, a few months after I moved here my office building started recycling, so I know longer had to take all of the paper recycling to the retriever at the YMCA. I now own a house so I have curbside recycling which is nice. All I can say is I think the City of St. Louis is behind the curb because of the garbage hauling issues it had just before I moved here. I am sure someone out there knows more about it than me...

Kel Johnson said...

Question for Amy. I am new to Fulton, missouri (between Columbia and Jeff's citi). At my college, William Woods university, we are working on a recycling program. we use a lot of styrofoam here in the dining hall. I have looked at the UPS website and found various locations near me. None of them say anything about recycling styrofoam. Is there a way to find out that information or do I need to call them up and ask if they take in the styrofoam? Please let me know!

Unknown said...

If you bring molded styrafoam that is used for product packaging some UPS stores will take it but will throw it into garbage.

The reason is that they can't reuse it for packaging purposes. :...-(

Midwest Recycling & Shredding Inc. said...

Contact Donna at 314-795-1206. We recycle all your clean Styrofoam. We have a drop off for residents at the Kirkwood Recycling Center located at 350 Taylor Avenue.