Polystyrene foam egg cartons, carryout containers and trays used to package meat or produce are among items no longer recyclable at Bethlehem's drop-off facility.

A display about polystyrene products not accepted at Bethlehem's Theis/Cornfeld Recycling Center stands Sunday, Oct. 30, 2016, outside the Illick's Mill Road facility's Styrofoam-recycling drop-off container, with written descriptions and a few examples taped onto it. (Kurt Bresswein | For lehighvalleylive.com)

These containers were accepted in the container labeled "Styrofoam" -- a trademarked brand of polystyrene foam -- at the city's Theis/Cornfeld Recycling Center, 635 Illick's Mill Road.

The rule of thumb for what types of polystyrene are recyclable at the center, open to anyone regardless of residency, is it has to snap, not bend, said city Recycling Director Mike Conway.

"Egg cartons, meat trays, they don't snap, they bend," he said. "That's because there's other chemicals mixed up with it. It's different from Styrofoam."

Packing peanuts are not accepted either. A display about the polystyrene products not accepted at the center has been placed outside the Styrofoam container, with written descriptions and a few examples taped onto it. The city began cracking down on polystyrene about two weeks ago, Conway said.

"We appreciate everyone's cooperation with it," he said Monday.

Bethlehem began accepting polystyrene in June 2008, and originally prohibited any foam that bends. Consumers unloaded these items anyway.

"The change is to get back to originally what we were supposed to be doing," Conway said.

Bethlehem previously banned pizza boxes from its recycling stream and last year sought to educate residents on keeping plastic bags out of their recycling.

Problems with the foam arise when the city runs the polystyrene through a densifier, a machine that compacts the foam to make it economically viable for transport to a recycler. A 40-cubic-yard container full of polystyrene contains only about 270 pounds of product, Conway said.

"When it goes in there, it'll melt the egg cartons and the meat trays and it sits in the bottom of the machine and solidifies and damages the machine," Conway said, adding that recent repairs to the densifier cost about $3,000.

Consumers can save polystyrene egg cartons and take them to farmers markets for reuse by people who raise hens, Conway said. He recommends cutting down on to-go food containers by asking for plastic and foil, both of which can dropped into residents' commingled curbside recycling once cleaned of food residue.

"Right now it's going to be trash," he said of polystyrene that isn't otherwise repurposed.

Polystyrene is among the types of conventional plastics considered to be non-biodegradable, according to a journal article hosted online by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

When properly disposed of, however, polystyrene comprises less than half of 1 percent of municipal solid waste by weight, according to research by the University of Illinois Extension.

"Because almost all material in landfills degrades at an extremely slow rate, the fact that foamed polystyrene does not break down rapidly is not a significant problem when it is disposed of in this manner," an article about the research states. "When the material becomes litter, however, it does represent a significant environmental problem."

The Lehigh Valley is home to Ecopax LLC, a manufacturer of polystyrene foam containers at 3600 Glover Road in Forks Township. The company broke ground in August on a 144,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in LVIP VII in Bethlehem to complement its Easton-area headquarters, according to the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.

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