Recycling trial will turn Science Area polystyrene waste into building insulation

The FM Contracts and Environmental Sustainability teams have set up a trial recycling scheme for expanded polystyrene (EPS) in the Science Area, extending the system they have already introduced at Old Road Campus.

The trial will mean tonnes of the material is turned into building insulation rather than being burned for energy every year, supporting the University’s environmental sustainability goals of reaching net zero carbon emissions and a positive overall impact on biodiversity by 2035.

EPS is widely used in packaging to protect and insulate delicate items in transit. New lab equipment and consumables come with a lot of it, so the University’s main research areas generate large amounts of EPS – waste that until recently could only be used to generate energy as there are no nearby processing facilities that can extract it for recycling from a mixed general waste stream.

The new scheme changes that by setting up a dedicated EPS collection service for the Science Area. Five departments have already signed up to the trial and agreed to cover its costs for the first year. This should mean more than 2,000kg of expanded polystyrene every year is recycled rather than used for energy recovery, for a total of 6,0000kg alongside what’s already collected at ORC. Because of the material’s low density, this is a huge amount – depending on the type of EPS, it is equivalent to a solid cube six metres or more to a side. 

If the trial is a success, the team intend to roll EPS recycling out across the whole Science Area.

All the material that’s collected is compressed into briquettes, shredded, and melted into pellets. These will then be turned into extruded polystyrene insulation and incorporated into floors, roofs and prefabricated panels, where EPS’ excellent insulating properties will help reduce carbon emissions for many years to come.
 
This initiative is part of the University’s drive to recycle a wider range of lab waste in support of its sustainability targets. Recycling ranks above energy recovery on the University’s Waste Hierarchy because it has a lower overall environmental impact.