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Montgomery County Styrofoam recycling event

Montgomery County Environmental Services

We spoke with Montgomery County Environmental Services Public Information Officer Megan O’Leary about another way to clean out your garage and help the environment at the same time.

Last month, we told you of a tire recycling event by the Montgomery County Environmental Services. This weekend, they will be holding another recycling event; this one for styrofoam used for packaging and shipping. We spoke with Montgomery County Environmental Services Public Information Officer Megan O’Leary about another way to clean out your garage and help the environment at the same time.

Megan O’Leary: Say you get an item that's packaged in a little Styrofoam peanuts or a new appliance that's packaged in Styrofoam. That's not something that's accepted at your curbside recycling. It's really not a recyclable item at all. And if you throw it away, which at the moment is the proper way to dispose of it, it goes to the landfill where it takes hundreds, hundreds of years to break down, if ever. And so these Styrofoam recycling events are a great way to divert Styrofoam from the landfills.

We started the Styrofoam recycling events in January of 2021. And really since that first event, we've seen nothing but amazing turnout each time we hold one.

At our last event, we collected more than 5,000 pounds of Styrofoam, which when you think of how light and airy Styrofoam is by itself, 5,000 pounds of that condensed down is a significant amount.

Mike Frazier: What is the Styrofoam repurposed as?

O’Leary: We partner with Eco Development. I need to give them a shout out. They're based out of Mason, Ohio, and Eco Development is the company that hauls the Styrofoam away to process it. They melt it down and then repurpose that into other items such as picture frames, surfboards and other packaging material.

This was kind of the brainchild of a couple of different people at our Environmental Learning Center and our Solid Waste Department. They came together and really saw the need for the diversion of Styrofoam from the waste stream and repurposing it into something new.

Frazier: That's interesting. I kind of thought that a lot of solid waste districts around well anywhere would also do this. But it sounds like this might be something unique to Montgomery County.

O’Leary: Yeah, it is unique. I don't know of any other waste districts that do anything like this in our and it's our hope that other districts catch on. You know, we all have the same goal of making our planet really a cleaner place to live. And, you know, it makes room for other things, frankly, in the landfill, because Styrofoam is so dense yet light and it never breaks down. If you divert it totally from the waste stream, that frees up more space for other items as well. We just won an award for the program.

Frazier: Do you accept any types of Styrofoam?

O’Leary: When Styrofoam is used for food containers, it can become contaminated based on grease or transfer of any food material into the porous nature of Styrofoam. And when you melt enough of those down, it can gum up the machine for Eco Development. So we ask residents not to bring any food containers. And I know that's kind of hard. You know, so many takeout places have Styrofoam to-go containers. But we really, really encourage people not to bring those.

Frazier: When is the next Styrofoam recycling event?

O’Leary: Our next Styrofoam recycling event will be from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on October 15 at Wegerzen’s Gardens MetroPark, and that is located at 1301 East Siebenthaler in Dayton.

We try and do them quarterly. So I think each season just about we have an event. So I would say January, April, July-ish and then October-ish. And those are strategically placed. You know, the January one really specifically is for post-holiday consumer items.

Typically what happens is during a Styrofoam recycling event, we've got great traffic patterns and it's to the point now where drivers don't even have to get out of their cars. We have enough volunteers that will take the Styrofoam out of people's vehicles without them even getting out and place it into the semi.

The other great thing about these events is you do not have to be a Montgomery County resident. We've had people from Columbus come. We've had people from Cincinnati. We've had people from very rural communities come. And it's really just gained so much awareness. And I think people have started to recognize that there's a need to divert that from the landfill and that we're a good option for that.

That was Megan O'Leary, public information officer for The Montgomery County Environmental Services styrofoam recycling event takes place this Saturday (Oct 15) from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Wegerzyn’s Gardens MetroPark on Siebenthaler Road. Also, a similar event will take place in Clark County. You can find more info about that event here.

A chance meeting with a volunteer in a college computer lab in 1987 brought Mike to WYSO. He started filling in for various music shows, and performed various production, news, and on-air activities during the late 1980s and 90s, spinning vinyl and cutting tape before the digital evolution.