Indeed, pre-consumer and post-consumer recycling is well established in the polystyrene industry, mainly for economic reasons. For example, the company recycles most of the polystyrene waste generated by its own production activities and reincorporates the recycled material in many of its products . The Isolofoam Group provides its customers with a collection service for its polystyrene residues (used for transport and packaging) in order to recycle them.

The Polyform company, located in Granby, initiated the collection of PES at the local ecocentre . Other eco-centers are also served by its recovery services: those of Waterloo, Sherbrooke, Cowansville, Magog, PointeClaire and the LaSalle borough of Montreal. Thus, 10% of the PSE collected by Polyform comes from eco-centers. Citizens can deposit all types of clean polystyrene (including food) there, and 86% of the material recovered is white EPS. This is then ground, extruded and granulated in the Polyform factory, Polyvert Recycling, and introduced into the composition of the new insulation panels. With the Polystyrene cut sheets you can have the perfect solutions.

In addition to the network of eco-centers served by Polyform, the eight eco-centers of the Lac-Saint-Jean Residual Materials Board (RMR) have also accepted the PSE and the PSX since 2015.

Circuit fault: recovery from consumers

Aside from these ad hoc initiatives, recovery from consumers is a problem in Quebec. Put on the market in often large pieces, polystyrene is expensive in transport to transport mainly air! Remember that it is made up of 98%! Recovery is therefore very unprofitable, which explains why the polystyrene is so little, or not recycled.

Thus, polystyrene cannot be put in the recycling bins. Indeed, for a material to go into the bin, a revaluation market must be in place, which was not the case in the province. You must therefore drop it off at the centers that collect it, or even at the ecocentres.

In its technical guide on the development of post-consumer polystyrene dated 2016, Recyc-Québec mentions that "70% of Canadians have access to a rigid polystyrene recovery service through selective collection", but that "However, this rate is only 18% in Quebec, far behind Ontario (93%), British Columbia (94%) and Nova Scotia (100%)".

Finally, the big problem with recycling is that the quality of the recycled product is generally reduced . In order to guarantee a certain quality of product, manufacturers always incorporate a significant portion of new content. We therefore speak rather of under-cycling (or downcycling ), recycling in closed cycle is absolutely impossible.

Insulation panels, on the other hand, have the advantage of being easy to handle during deconstruction, demollition or renovation. Unlike sprayed products, they do not adhere to the walls they insulated. The challenge is therefore to educate and train entrepreneurs to manage their end of life, since recycling solutions exist.

About the Company: Foam Technologies are one of Australia’s leading polystyrene suppliers, servicing the building and construction sector.