Thanks for asking!
As a Northern Californian, ensconced in one the most environmentally
conscious areas of the U.S., and having heard quite a bit of rhetoric
about the environmental nastiness of packing and packaging materials,
I expected that finding the 'dirty details' would be an easy task.
However, it turns out that much of that rhetoric involves myths that
evolved during the 1970's and '80's and haven't yet diminished in the
popular consciousness. The actual statistics are not as alarming as I
would have guessed before this research. The industry has created and
met a number of environmental benchmarks over the past 10-15 years.
The independent resource document for many of the statistics
disseminated widely online is the Franklin Associates, Ltd. report:
Waste Management and Reduction Trends in the Polystyrene Industry,
1974-1997
The full report, with executive summary, documents the amount of
polystyrene the polystyrene industry source reduced from the mid-1970s
to the mid 1990s. Franklin Associates, Ltd. is an independent
consultancy which measures and analyses solid waste disposal methods
for industry, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as well as
state, regional and local government agencies involved in
environmental management. The report is available from the Polystyrene
Packaging Council at a single copy price of $25. Many of the quotes
that are found in my Answer and in the webpage links provided are
taken from this original report. The order source page below also
offers a number of free publications.
Polystyrene.org
Order More Info
http://www.polystyrene.org/top_level/polystyrene_info.asp
According to a wide variety of sources. less than one percent by
volume and less than one-quarter of one percent by weight of solid
landfill material is composed of polystyrene loose-fill packing
material, the 'technical' designation for packing peanuts within the
group of products known as Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) foam packaging.
Packing peanuts contain approximately 99.6% air and 0.4% polystyrene
resin. Styrene is a naturally occurring chemical also derived as a
byproduct of petroleum distillation.
According to LooseFillPackaging.com:
"The minimum recycled content in plastic loosefill is 25%. Some
loosefill has 100% recycled content. Through the national reuse
program for plastic loosefill, the Peanut Hotline, member businesses
use 50% reused loosefill in their outbound shipments. Over 30% of all
plastic loosefill is reused."
Plastic Loose Fill Council
http://www.loosefillpackaging.com/pages/faq.htm
The myth surrounding the use of plastic packaging peanuts and other
polystyrene packaging materials is discussed in this excerpt from
Plastics Resource, a source of data and information on plastics and
the environment.
"Over the years, Garbage Project researchers have asked people who
have never seen the inside of a landfill to estimate what percentage
of a landfill's content is made up of fast-food packaging, expanded
polystyrene foam and disposable diapers. In September of 1989 this
very question was asked of a group attending the biennial meeting of
the National Audubon Society, and the results were generally
consistent with those obtained from surveys at universities, business
meetings, and conferences of state and local government officials."
For the full text of the report, see:
http://www.plasticsresource.com
Myth No. 1
http://www.plasticsresource.com/disposal/5_major_myths/garbage/myth1.html
Plastics and the Environment
http://www.plasticsresource.com/
Packing Peanut Environmental Facts offered by the Plastic Loose Fill
Council:
**EPS loose fill is non-toxic, inert and made without
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
**EPS loose fill is over 99.6% air.
**It takes 40% to 50% less energy to make EPS loose fill than to make
a comparable amount of paper packaging.
**Atmospheric emissions from the production of polystyrene are only
1/2 to 1/3 of those from the production of a comparable amount of
paper.
**Waste water volume from polystyrene production is 1/3 of that
resulting from producing a comparable amount of paper.
Plastic Loose Fill Council
Environmental Questions - Facts
http://www.loosefillpackaging.com/pages/environment.htm
The Polystyrene Packaging Council offers an extensive set of documents
detailing the use and disposal of these packaging materials. Each
document includes an annotated bibliography of sources for their data.
"According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the
1999 update of the "Characterization of Municipal Solid Waste in the
U.S." report, less than one percent (about 0.6 percent) of solid waste
disposed of in the U.S. is polystyrene packaging - including both food
service packaging (cups, plates, bowls, trays, clamshells, meat trays,
egg cartons, yogurt and cottage cheese containers, and cutlery) and
protective packaging (shaped end pieces used to ship electronic goods
and loose fill "peanuts"). The disposal of polystyrene is managed
safely and effectively through the integrated system advocated by the
U.S. EPA, which includes: Source Reduction, Reuse, Recycling,
Waste-to-Energy Recovery, and Landfilling."
Polystyrene Packaging Council
Polystyrene and the Environment
http://www.polystyrene.org/environment/environment.html
Additional documents from the Polystyrene Packaging Council:
The Waste that Wasn't
http://www.polystyrene.org/environment/waste_wasnt.html
Polystyrene Recycling - Long Term Market Trends
http://www.polystyrene.org/environment/long_term.html
Degradability, Compostability and Litter
http://www.polystyrene.org/environment/degradability.html
Environmental and a broad estimate of manufacturing statistics for EPS
foam is available from Ethe Alliance of Foam Package Recyclers. This
is one of the few documented sources of manufacturing information
specifically about polystyrene packaging.
"In the Spring of 1999, the AFPR commissioned R.W. Beck to perform a
direct survey of EPS molders to determine the quantities of EPS
manufactured into packaging applications. The study documented 202
million pounds of custom-shape and block molded EPS packaging produced
during calendar year 1998."
and
"As a proxy for 1999 and 2000 production data, market growth figures
for EPS packaging obtained from the APC statistical program were
applied to the 1998 AFPR Study benchmark figure. This calculation
resulted in an overall production figure of 211 million pounds for
calendar year 1999 and 206 million pounds for 2000."
Alliance of Foam Package Recyclers
EPS Meets Environmental Expectations
http://www.epspackaging.org/accolades.html
For more detailed manufacturing and production statistics, you'd
require The Resin Review, the complete production and marketing report
produced yearly by the American Plastics Council. Your city or
university library may have, or be able to obtain, copies of this
report.
The Resin Review
The American Plastics Council
http://www.resinreview.com/resin_book_orderform.php3
Statistics and information on the extraction and manufacture of
styrene is available from:
The Styrene Information and Resource Center
http://www.styrene.org/
Black Rhinocerus, a Green Activist's Resource, offers environmentalist
views on plastics and alternatives:
Conservation
http://www.blackrhinoceros.org/issues/conservation.html
One alternative to plastic packaging peanuts is a relatively new
variation made from cornstarch.
"My wife and I got a package in the mail that fascinated me. I don't
even recall its contents, because I was taken with the the green
packing peanuts used to protect whatever it was from damage. As I
scooped up the pellets to toss them in the trash, my wife said, with a
very knowing voice, "Just toss them on the compost pile." What!
Plastic in the compost? No. She showed me a slip of paper that
explained: There was no "plastic or polluting gases" used to make
these peanuts; they were made of cornstarch." Read the full text at:
EngineerGuy.com
Cornstarch Peanuts
Public Radio Commentary by Bill Hammack
http://www.engineerguy.com/comm/3294.htm
Google search terms:
plastic packing peanuts environmental impact
polystyrene packaging
solid waste polystyrene
polystyrene packaging alternatives
I hope you find that the material, links and data sources meet your
requirements. Should you have any questions about this information,
please, feel free to ask.
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