Food service foam
By: Chrissy Kadleck
October 12, 2009

As the first institution in the state of Illinois to recycle food service foam, Maryville Academy will divert nearly 700,000 pieces of foam from area landfills each year.

Instead, those thousands of polystyrene cups, hinged containers, plates and bowls will be fed into an on-site densifier leased from Michigan-based Dart Container Corp. designed to compact a mound of foam food containers and trays the size of a small car into the size of a five-gallon bucket.

As a nonprofit organization servicing children and families in need for more than 125 years, Maryville Academy had been looking to bolster its recycling efforts without incurring too many additional costs. In April, the institution learned about the ability to recycle its large volume of polystyrene at a food show.

“Prior to that we didn’t know foam could be recycled at all,” said Gloria Gonzalez, purchasing director at Maryville Academy. “That’s just amazing to me, and when you find out they’ve been doing this since 1990, I felt like I’ve been in a cave for 20 years.”

In late September, the academy unveiled its new densifier, situated outside of Maryville’s food service location at the Scott Nolan Center in Des Plaines, Ill. The machine is capable of compressing 8,000 eight-ounce foam cups into a cylinder 15 inches tall and 15 inches in diameter.

“This initiative stays true to our mission because we are trying to teach our children to be productive citizens of the world,” Gonzalez said. “And what’s so amazing and so fun about this program is that we get to see this in action. It doesn’t get hauled away like other recycling initiatives.”

Maryville secured the densifier — ideal for high-volume restaurants and cafeteria systems using foam products such as the academy’s 24-hour patient food services — through Dart’s CARE program, which helps large operators separate foam from other products, consolidate collected material, and have it recycled. The recycled foam can then be reprocessed into building insulation and plastic lumber, among other products.

By the end of the year, Dart plans to open a facility in North Aurora, Ill., as a public drop-off for foam #6, which includes clean food service foam as well as packaging foam from new electronic purchases, said Michael Westerfield, corporate director of recycling programs at Dart.

“Maryville has been servicing families in need and rebuilding lives by being a positive role model. By recycling foam, they are expanding their role modeling by teaching their families how to respect the earth,” Westerfield said. “We are pleased to play a small part in the process.”

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