Styrofoam and CD/DVD Recycling Collection
Bainbridge Island Zero Waste and Bay Hay and Feed team up twice a year to offer the community a chance to recycle their Styrofoam packaging, coolers, and peanuts, as well as CDs and DVDs.
We have postponed the January collection till later in the spring.
Keep your Styro dry!
Our most recent collection was September 12 & 13, 2020. Over 50 volunteers helped with car unloading, snapping, bagging, and clean-up. 448 vehicles came through, generously donating over $3300 toward Zero Waste programs. We filled up all three of the semi-trailer trucks (pictured left) that Safeway supervisor Jay Hildebrand provided. This Styrofoam will be ground up and melted at their Auburn asset recovery center, then sold to a plastics processor. More than 30 garbage bags full of peanuts were also collected and shared with people who will reuse them as shipping material.
ZW steering committee member Dawn Snider’s Bainbridge Review letter to the editor about the event is here. (Scroll down to second letter.)
How to Prepare Styrofoam
- REMOVE ALL TAPE and STICKERS from block packaging and coolers
- Keep it clean
- Keep it dry
- Bag the peanuts separately from the other Styro; no debris in the bag
Which Styrofoam Is Accepted
- #6 EPS (snappable) polystyrene packaging blocks or coolers
- Styrofoam food trays of all colors are allowed if clean, except NO TAN TRAYS — they are made from corn starch and can go in Town & Country Market’s compost bins
- Styrofoam food containers if clean and dry
- Peanuts (compostable peanuts also accepted) – must be dry and clean
Which Styrofoam is NOT Accepted
- Hot tubs or hot tub covers
- Styro from the beach
- Pink or blue insulation foam
- Foil-covered foam
- Insta-pak foam
- Soft (squishy) foam
- Styro with glue, attached cardboard or screws
- Styro with mold growth
- Tan meat trays (take to T&C)
CDs and DVDs must be loose — no cases.
A donation is requested to defray the event costs. 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!
THANK YOU TO OUR SUPPORTERS:
Bay Hay and Feed – host site, provider of used bags
Safeway – transporter of filled bags and provider of new bags
UCB Biosciences – monetary contribution
Kitsap Solid Waste – holding boxes
This event, now in its tenth year, would never have been possible without the participation of Howard Block, owner of Bay Hay and Feed. In addition to hosting the event, over the years he has trucked hundreds of bags of Styrofoam to Styro Recycle in Kent on regular business trips to the area.
The CDs and DVDs are sent to GreenDisk, which ships them to the National Industries for the Blind, where they are sorted and ground into polycarbonate flakes. That raw plastic is then shipped to manufacturers to make plastic materials to sell, including spools for producing 3-D printing filament. The filament is then sent back to the N.I.B., where it is packaged to be sold to the federal government, which has used the 3-D filament for many things, including repairing broken parts on Humvees and nuclear missiles.
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Kitsap Solid Waste has postponed their January 2021 collection.
Their next collection will be in late spring or summer.
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