One of my very first full-time jobs was working in a Styrofoam plant. I did this while working my way through college and took a full-time position after graduating. Through a two-year span, I started on the production floor and worked my way up into shipping and several supervision positions. The company was called Formex and we manufactured custom flotation products such as canoe-ends, floating lounge chairs called Floater Loafers, paddle boards, sailboats, and catamarans. We would also make large 4’x8′ billets that would then be run on a conveyor belt through hot wires, cutting them into various sizes. These would be used for insulation, flotation, filler or packaging. One of our largest and most unusual clients was the Batesville Casket Company to make lightweight, inexpensive caskets, by laminating thin layers of wood directly onto the surface of 2″ wide slabs of our Styrofoam. At least those six-feet under continue to be well-insulated from the elements!
The simple manufacturing process involved injecting tiny round beads of Styrofoam into molds and fusing them together using steam. It was a hot, dangerous job involving high-pressure steam that would enable the beads to expand in size and eventually bond together, taking the shape of the mold. Cold water would then quickly cool down the heavy metal machines that we operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Overtime was always available and the job paid much more than most of the white-color, career-oriented jobs that I was constantly in the process of finding. Against my principals at the time, I had to join a Union and carry a card, so there were no rewards for more efficient or faster production – only frowns. I often times would work the overnight shifts where I could work alone and exceed strict Union-based production quotas. The time went by faster when I could try to out-do my own personal production records, and I didn’t have to deal with supervisors like I eventually was, and slow-working, do I dare say, lazy, co-workers? I would head to college classes once my shift was done, so I was also a bit more ambitious than my fellow-workers, and that didn’t always go over well. You can imagine some of the animosity I had to deal with once I eventually became their boss.
I was out in my garage today unwrapping the parts to a chandelier that will eventually hang in our foyer. Some assembly necessary! It was shipped in a cardboard box with custom-molded Styrofoam packing. It took me back 35 years or more to my factory days. The Styrofoam was poorly fused, broke apart easily, and beads were everywhere. They stuck to my arm, to my clothing, and to the box. It was reminiscent of the injection process, where those damn beads would stick to my sweaty arms and even get in my hair. Static electricity bonds them to your body, and pretty soon they’re scattered everywhere. Back in my Union days, they would get in my lunch, my car, and my house. I would curse their existence just as I did in the garage today. You simply can’t get rid of them! They clog the vacuum, litter the floors, and stick to the walls! These “little beads from hell” should be forever banned, along with their “Ghost Poop” cousins. I want to “return to sender” any package that uses this evil product.
I never thought badly of Styrofoam all those years ago. I never even considered the fact that it never deteriorates. It may eventually break down into just tiny beads, but they never go away. Birds and other animals undoubtedly die from eating them, and our graveyards are full of them, as are our landfills littered with old coolers, insulation, anything that floats, take-out containers, “disposable” cups, and picnic plates, just to name some of the more obvious uses. At the factory, we would laminate the soft surface of Styrofoam with a hard plastic, using a vac-u-form like process to give it more durability and an attractive look. Unfortunately, many boats are constructed in this manner, along with other products that hide the presence of a Styrofoam core. These are also buried in our landfills and fill the junkyards, now re-positioned as recycling centers. Apparently, there is a machine called a “densifier” that can shred and melt the material into a form of plastic, but once again it never goes away!
It’s sad to admit that I once played a role in making Styrofoam, but really I was just recycling it. It came to us in containers produced by Dow Chemical, who owns the trademark, and the responsibility of creating this mess. They did not invent it, but rather bought the patient from a Swedish scientist. Dow Chemical has been behind many controversial products, including “Agent Orange” used in the Vietnam War. Dow has also done a lot of good things, like providing most of the financial support for the school I initially attended, Albion College. I did not know their relationship to Styrofoam while I was working at Formex, as if it might have made a difference at that time in my life. The extent of my connection to Dow came in the form of a “blind date.” When I first arrived at Albion College, they issued each Freshman a collection of photos of fellow students that we called the “Joke Book.” It was a precursor to Face Book back in the year 1970. I arranged for a dance date with a young woman based on her photo, and she must have accepted based on my photo. As I was walking with her across campus, I teased her about one of the classroom buildings bearing her last name. It was intimidating to me at the time to find out that it was named after her grandfather, one of the founders of Dow Chemical. She could have at least kept it a secret until after a few dates, but I think it was a good indication of her not-so-humble personality. At that moment, our date started to crumble like a piece of Styrofoam.
You are so correct about styrofoam never going away, but it can be re-used in a densified form. You can’t put styrofoam in your curb side recycling containers, but you can take it 24/7 to Agilyx Corporation, 7904 Hunziker Street, Tigard, OR.