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How Styrofoam Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is a good
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: old fashioned, root and tootin wholesome, down home hour of
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: fellowship with Stuff you should Know.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Wow, these sound like the coolest youth director in the building.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: You nailed the chuck, You totally nailed it.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: I'm also the only youth director in the building right now.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: That's right. I I had to hang out my spurs.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you got run out on a rail, didn't you.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: They were like, if there's one thing that's certainly not cool,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: this youth directors in their fifties, so you're out right.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: I'm still in my forties. So it's kind of like
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: David Bowie said, don't trust any youth director over fifty.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: That's right. You know. He also sung about styrofoam.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: No he didn't.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I just thought I could get you.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: No, I could see it. I mean like it was
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: when Bowie was Bowie, it was styrofoam was still this
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: amazing wonder product. But I gotta say, Chuck, I feel
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: like in the last decade or so, maybe it's started
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: to get kind of a bad name.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: I think you're right, uh, And we're gonna, I mean,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about the science of it all, how
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: it's made, and clear up some misconceptions and reinforce some conceptions.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: But the first thing we should probably clear up, and
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: big thanks to Lvia by the way, she knocked the
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: outther one out of the park, YEP, is that styrofoam
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: is a brand name, and Levi Levia Lyvia is keen
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: to point out that it's not just like you know,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: band aid or Kleenex like this one actually matters because
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: the styrofoam that you and I think of and most
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: people probably think of as like, you know what, what
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: to go container or an old school coffee cup or
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: to go coffee cup might be Ye, that's actually not styrofoam.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: That's technically something called EPs expanded polystyrene, whereas the brand
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: name styrofoam is extruded polystyrene and that's mainly just like
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: used for insulation and you know, cut into big boards
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Right, And you're like, well, what's the big deal? They're
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: actually basically exactly the same products. They have slightly different properties.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: But it's all the same raw materials, very similar production processes,
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: and that the final product is, for all intentsive purposes,
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: the same. The big difference is the styrofoam is used
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: for years and years and years and years. Like, once
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: you put it in to insulate a radiant heat floor,
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: you're not going to tear that up after a couple
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: of days and throw it in the dump. Ye with
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: the other stuff that expanded polystyrene, the stuff we think
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: of as styrofoam, that's the stuff we used once for
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: a few minutes and just throw away and get another
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: new one. And that's posing a bigger and bigger problem
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: as time goes on.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: That's right, unless you're at my house than Emily collects
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: every bit of styrofoam and drives it to the specific
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: styrofoam place Charm, Yeah, which still may not be recycling it.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Oh no really, Oh I don't know. I mean, I
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: think Charm does the right thing, but I don't know.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: I just think so much of that stuff is dubious
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: once you drop it off, Like who knows what even
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: happens to it? Yeah, And I don't mean that in
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: a conspiracy minded way. I just mean that as we'll
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: see recycling styrofoam, there's just not a lot of reason
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: to do it if you're styrofoam people, because you can
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: just make it again so cheaply.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: It's true. And for those of you, yeah, it is
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: sad for sure. And for those of you outside of
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: the Atlanta area, CHARM is the one recycling center in
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: the entire metro Atlanta area where you can take styrofoam
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: stands for the Center for Hard to Recycle Materials.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, God bless Emily for doing all that,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: because I certainly wouldn't.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: I know, it's a hall. It's not really conveniently.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Neither is saving tons and tons of styrofoam to go
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: to CHARM once a month or whatever. But she does it,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: so yeah, you know, she does the right thing.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: So let's talk about all this stuff because I find
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: it pretty fascinating. There's some science involved, or some environmentalism involved,
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: there's some corporate tomfoolery involved. I'm excited about this one. Well,
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: I'm glad, good, Well, I'm going to kick it off
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: because styrofoam, Well, let's start. We're talking about polystyrene, and
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: polystyrene is a form of styrene and styrene occurs naturally
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: in a lot of different plants. It's just kind of
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: part of the ecosystem. But it was first distilled out
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: in I think eighteen thirty nine, Yeah, by a German pharmacist.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: I'm going with Edward Simmon in German.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't know that sounds French.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that doesn't sound very German.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: I me just call him Eddie Simon.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Eddie Simon. In eighteen thirty nine, he was a pharmacist
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: who got his hands on a sweet gum tree from America,
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: which was probably very exotic in Germany at the time,
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: and he got styrene out of there, and he figured
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: out how to take styrene molecules, which are a monomer,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: and put a bunch of them together to make a polymer.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: And what he got was a rigid plastic solid. What
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: we're talking about is a type of plastic. And he's like,
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: I can't do anything with this, and just moved along.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And it stayed that way for close to one
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: hundred years, like ninety years or so. And finally in
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, again a lot of stuff comes about
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: because they're trying to figure out some sort of military
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: use for something that was the case here as we were,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: you know, between wars, the military was like, hey, how
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: can we use this stuff? The literal brand name styrofoam,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: which again is the XPS the stuff that's you know,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: used in radio flooring and like wall insulation and stuff
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: like that, that wasn't been in a couple of times.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: The first time I'm by a Swedish and minter named
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Carl Munters who developed it in the thirties but again
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of practical use for it. And
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  Speaker 1: then Dow came along, the Dow Chemical Company during World
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: War Two, and they had an engineer named Ray McIntyre
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: who said, I'm looking to try and get a synthetic
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: or I guess he was charged with trying to develop
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: a synthetic substitute for rubber.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he was facing five years for it.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, to use as a flexible insulator. And he combined
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: styrene with isobutylene and what he got was something he
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: didn't expect, which was this very airy The i of
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: buteline formed bubbles in the styrene. So it was you
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: know what we think of a styrofom, this super light,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: very airy, very insulating, water resistant flexible material.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so imagine taking something like imagine taking a CD
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: jewel case because that's polystyrene m and chopping it up
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: into little tiny pellets, and then you're messing around with
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: it and adding so beautilene, and all of a sudden,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: those pealaces turn into little foamy balls, the exact same
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: thing that if you have a very lightweight bean bag chair,
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: it's full of those. It's polystyrene foam. That's the basis
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: of the whole thing, right, these little tiny pellets. And
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: he must have just been as surprised as the day
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: is long.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Dow was certainly surprised and delighted, and they
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: were like, hey, let's just start manufacturing this stuff. We
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: got plenty of things we can do. And somebody said,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, there's this other guy named Carl Munters
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  Speaker 1: who already developed, you know, and has patented this concept.
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  Speaker 1: And dal said, great, let's just write him, cut him
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  Speaker 1: a check, and now we can patent capital s styrofoam.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: And they did so, and they started saying, hey, you know,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: we can build like floating docks out of this stuff,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: and there's all sorts of marine uses basically because it
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: floats really well.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, because that extruded polystyrene, the actual styrofoam brand type
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: that is very water resistant, it's extremely lightweight, it's very buoyant.
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  Speaker 2: So it just automatically made sense to apply it to
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: different like water based situations, right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. As far as the stuff that we
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: think of as styrofoam, around the same time in the
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty is a German company called ip Farban, who
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: I know, we've talked about them before several times.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: They're the ones who created the gas that was used
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: in the gas chambers. Ah Okay, they've come up a
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: time or two. They don't have a great reputation these
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: days now.
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  Speaker 1: I know, we've definitely talked about them a few times.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: But they were developing the EPs, the polystyrene foam, the
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: stuff again that we think of as styrofoam, like you know,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: the cups and the to go containers and all that stuff,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: and both sides in World War Two started saying, hey,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: this stuff is super light and super insulating, works good
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: as a shock absorber. We can use it in various
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: parts to make them lighter, So let's get going with it.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The thing is, I guess it's part of the
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  Speaker 2: extrusion process. Essentially is only made in board form long
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: finished boards, right, kind of like it looks like drywall,
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: but it's foam. If you've ever been to a do
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: it yourself hardware store and they have like big big
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: rectangles of foam, that is styrofoam styrol. It might not
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: be Styrofoam brand, but it's that exact same thing, right,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: And there's not that many uses to it. But the
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: stuff it does do like blockout heat, insulate is another
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: word for it. It does really really well. Right, So
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: the XPS is it has like some limited applications. The EPs,
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: the stuff we think of like the styrofoam cups and
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: all that stuff, that has like a limitless applications because
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: you can take that stuff as part of the production
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: process and push it into a mold and mold it
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: into any shape you want. And they definitely did that
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: in the post war era of prosperous better living through chemistry.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: That styrofoam was a a big star of that at first.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, you can probably name any sort
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: of insulation application that it was used for, everything from
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: you know, ice cream containers, like you know, when you
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: go to taste all the ice cream and then finally
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: settle on one those big coolers. Those are lined with
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: thick styrofoam. They used them for Christmas ornaments because they
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: were super light and won't weigh down a tree. All
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: kinds again of marine applications, you know, buoys, floating docks,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: in boats. Again, you can mold it however you want.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: But you know the styrophone coolers that you know, you
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: pick up at the gas station because you just have
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: a hankering for cold beer and you're on the road
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: you want to drink and drive smart. Just kidding, But
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: those that you see in the convenient store, those started
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: popping up in the nineteen fifties, but we didn't see
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: the cups until the nineteen sixties, right.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, apparently Chick fil A was one of the first
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: restaurants to adopt styrofoam cups to go stuff. Right, that
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: was in nineteen sixty I think.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right on the nose from what the Dart Manufacturing
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Company of Michigan.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so Dart Manufacturing got into this, and they got
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: into it so heavy that they actually ended up changing
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: their name to Dark Container Corporation. They're one of the
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: leading companies or leading producers of what you would consider
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: styrofoam containers. Yeah, so they were the ones that started
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: producing this, started kind of getting it out there, like, Hey,
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: you know how you don't like your customers sitting around
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: taking an hour and a half to drink their coke. Yeah,
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: buy one of our styrofoam cups. They'll just get right
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: out of your hair and somebody else can come in
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: and patronize your restaurant. Right, So it caught on pretty quick.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: I think seven to eleven was the first chain to
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: actually start using styrofoam cups for coffee, which, as we'll see,
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: was a bad idea right out of the gate. And
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: by the seventies it was like anywhere you went and
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: got coffee, it came in a white And again, I'm sorry,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: I realized I keep using the word styrofoam. You couldn't
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: do any different than I am right now trying to
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: talk about this.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: It's impossible, but that just.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: Became the standard for this whole thing, Like a styrofoam cup,
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: that's what your coffee came in until Starbucks came along.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean for decades basically, and then Starbucks did
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: lead the charge to sort of, you know, get rid
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: of that, and then you know, a bunch of people
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: followed suit, thankfully. But you know, when fast food came
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: along and take out food got more popular, obviously that's
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: gonna grow, grow, growth, the syrophoam business. I'm very glad
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Livia included this because I would have if she wouldn't have,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: and you probably would have to. But if you grew
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: up a kid in the eighties, then you remember the
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: McDonald's McDLT. If you don't remember, I think we've mentioned
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: it before, but it was. The idea was they're like, hey,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: no one wants all this hot, droopy lettuce and steamy
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: tomatoes on their hamburgers. They want that stuff to be cold,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: and they want their burger to be hot, and they
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: want to do it like you do at home, is
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: you add that stuff right before you put it in
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: your mouth for the right mixture. And that's what the
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: McDLT was. It was not only an offending styrofoam container,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: but it was a double because you had one side
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: that had keeps the hot stuff hot and the cool
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: side cool. That's right, and none other than Seinfeld's own
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Jason Alexander Sang and danced in a TV commercial in
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: the eighties extolling the virtues of the McDLT container itself.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, wearing a skinny tie. I think he's wearing a
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: blazer with the sleeves rolled up.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Even maybe probably pushed.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Up like he thinks of nineteen eighty five. Yeah, the
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: thing about the McDLT container, and yeah, if you don't
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: know we're talking about, just go look it up. Once
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: you took the top off, you could actually like close
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: the bottoms together and put your sandwich together, like using
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: your styrofoam container. For those who were like really good at.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: It, Yeah, I see. I don't know. I never ate
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: that because that wasn't my jam, but it seemed like
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: it would just kind of not do a very great
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: job at that.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah. No, mcdelt never passed my lips either because of
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: the L and the T. But I have to say,
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: one of the things that makes me really nostalgic for
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: my childhood is looking at old styrophoem McDonald's containers.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard not to just see that that yellow
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: container with all the m's all over it. Yep, and
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: not pine for it, but just you know, just like
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: nostalgia does.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Definitely takes you back. What knocked me out is, as
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: we'll see, it wasn't until nineteen ninety that they stopped
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: using those things.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we'll get to you know how it's been
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: sort of weeded out here and there, but it's still
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: a booming industry. I think last year worldwide there were
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: fifteen point two million total tons of polystyrene produced, and
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: about sixty percent of that is in the Age of
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Pacific region. Apparently it's a growing thing, but it's growing
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: much slower in Europe and North America than it is
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: in industrializing areas around the world.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Right, most of it goes in the packing industry. I
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: think a third of it is used by packaging industry.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Those packing peanuts were invented by a guy named Robert E.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Holding back in nineteen sixty five. Household appliances used as
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: another quarter of it. I didn't understand that. I think
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: some of it as packing materials. You know you have
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: to pull all those boards of cyrofoam out of your
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: new refrigerator.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's also in some of the units,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: like in a washer, aren't there like big chunks of
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: styrofoam is just like air? Yeah, take up airspace.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: I think that's part of it. And then also like
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: in that same fridge, there's like around the dials and controls.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: They'll use some for insulation. They don't actually insulate the
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: fridge with it because you can't create an air tight
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: seal between two boards, but they do use it in
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: another place is in the fridge where you don't need
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: an airtight seal.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Well, I think this is off to a capital start.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Shall we take a break and let you take over?
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Sure? I think that's a capital idea.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: All right, we'll be right back.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Okay, Chuck. So we're back, and you said that I
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: would be taking over, and since I'm taking over, I'm
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: in charge and I'm delegating it to you.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: I can start this part. But you know when did
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: come in because it's part of you know, it's chemistry,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: and that's famously the only class I ever failed.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: I'm just fascinated by it. So yeah, this works out
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: just perfectly.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: That's great. If we're talking about styring today. Another name
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: for it is vinyl benzcene because it is a vinyl.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: As we'll see, it does not come from a plant
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: like Eddie Simon used back in Germany in the eighteen thirties.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: The modern process is it starts with you know, it
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: comes from petroleum products these days, and specifically a couple
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: called benzene and ethylene. They're combined with a catalyst called
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: aluminum chloride to eventually produce ethyl benzene. You get that
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: in a gas state process. It at a high temperature
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: with another catalyst. It's a process called dehydrogenating. And finally
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: you have your styrene.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Yes, styrene is eight h eight lots of carbon, lots
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: of hydrogen together. Yeah, and in that styrene molecule there
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: are carbon atoms that have a double bond between them, right,
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: which means that they can share one. So when you
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: take styrene a monomer and put a bunch of them
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: together to create a polymer, one of those double bonds
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: kind of opens up and connects to another one and
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: another one another one. It forms a car chained right.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: But if you look at the I don't know what
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: it's called, but like the chemical drawing, you know of
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: like the molecule with the lines and the seas and
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: the h's and everything.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like in most movies that's rendered three D,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: so you can zoom it around and stuff.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: Right, this is more like the written out shorthand that
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about. I know what you're talking about. Yeah,
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: I don't know what mine's called, but whatever that is.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: For the polystyrene, if you look at it, it's a
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: nice little carbon chain, but then there's these like medallions
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: dangling off of them. Those are called phenol groups. And
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: because of those things, the polymers can't form a really
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: nice crystalline structure, which means that you could it's see through.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: It's not particularly thick, it's brittle, so it can break,
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: and it's not flexible very much. Right, And I was like, well,
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: wait a minute. Crystal you think about is already see through.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: But as far as chemistry goes, the more crystalline the
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: structure is, the tighter the whole thing is put together,
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: so the thicker and less see through. It is, so
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: like steel has a very crystalline structure, even though you know,
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: I think rose quartz when I think of a crystalline structure.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: But that's wrong, wrong, wrong.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah. See that's why I'm like good at chemistry. It's
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: not very intuitive, is.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: It, I know, But I mean this is pretty late
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: in life. It's not like I was a chemistry whiz
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: in high school. I'm not even sure if I took
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: a chemistry class in high school. Oh yeah, yeah, I
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: got out of a lot of stuff. Never took trig.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: How'd you get out of that stuff?
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: I had my ways?
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, I won't ask any further.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: So again, if you take the stuff this polystyrene, you
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: don't have anything that even resembles a foam cup. You
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: have like what looks like a bunch of pellets that
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: if you mashed together, you would again create a CD
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: jewel case, because that's exactly what they do to create those.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: You have to go add a couple extra steps to
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: create polystyrene foam.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And you know we said that that stuff
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: was prone to cracking and very breakable. If you came
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: about in the CD jewel case era. Red solo cups too,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: are also the same thing. But you know those CD
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: jewel cases, if you had one long enough, it's going
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: to have a crack in it.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the entire thing.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, there's almost a badge of bonner. Like,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: look how long I've had this thing. It's you can't
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: even see through it anymore. It's cracked all over the place.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: You can't even see Billy Joel's face.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: By the way. Well, I think we'll just follow up
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: with the Billy Joel listener mail. But he he announced
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: he has a medical condition and he's canceling his tour
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: for now. So it's very sad to see, kind of
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: right after we talked about him. I know, jinks hopefully
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: he'll be uh, he'll be okay though, but any.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: I'm sure he will be.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: So these XPS boards that we keep talking about, the
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: capital s dirofoam that's used an insulation and stuff like that.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: How they make that As they melt those little beads
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: that you were talking about, those little granules, add chemicals,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: one of which is a blowing agent, and then they
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: forced that thing through a die as in a dee
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: is in like die cast metal.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Right thing right, And then they're constantly pushing that stuff
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: through and it's melting it and pressing it together and
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: the final product those boards of polystyrene are really smooth,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: they're really thick, they're not very they just look really uniform.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: And the reason why is because all of those cells,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: all those polystyrene foam pellets that you use in a
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: beambag chair. They get pressed together so tightly with so
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: much pressure and heat that they there's no space between them.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Basically.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: Okay. With expanded polystyrene, the stuff that you make cups
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: and containers out of, it's it's slightly different. You take
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: those same pellets, and like you said, there's a blowing
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: agent in there. Both kinds have a blowing agent, but
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: they use different ones. And the blowing agent is this
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: kind of gas that is put into in little tiny
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: bubbles into the little polystyrene foam pellets. That's what makes
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: it foamy. But if you take those same pellets and
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: you expose them to steam, they swell up because that
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: blowing agent suddenly boils and vaporizes at very low temperatures,
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: and the pellets expand to like forty times their size,
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: and they melt together very easily. And what you have
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: now is essentially the raw material for expanded polystyrene. That's
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: why they call it expanded which you can make everything
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: from a coffee cup to vintage Santa Claus door ornament face.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exact.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: Do you remember those? Oh?
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Totally?
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: I mean that's another nostalgic. Yeah, I think you can
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: get them still on like eBay.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of nostalgia around styrofoam if you kind
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: of really think about it, if you're a gen xer.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: But that, I mean, that goes to show just how
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: what a huge part it was of twentieth century life.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: It really was. Yeah, for sure, So we mentioned, you know,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: those boards are really great at insulating, which is why
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: they use it in like sighting sometime and stuff like that,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: or in ice cream coolers. One reason is because it
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: is water resistant. If you have an insulating material that
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: has moisture in it, that's no good because water conducts
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: heat really well, so that's one good thing, but they
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: do degrade over time the board, you know, that blowing
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: agent will leak out of those cells a little bit
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: over time, so it's a little less insulating. And while
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: it is water resistant, it's not completely water resistant. So
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: when it does not resist a little bit of water,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: it has a really aka absorption, it has a really
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: hard time getting rid of it again, So that just
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: kind of knocks it down over time. But even considering depletion,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: it still has a really good thermal resistance and is
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: still a really good insulator.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like twice as twice as good, I guess then, Yeah,
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: that roll out insulation that you can buy.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I don't think we mentioned early on, you
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: know they were they used to put like foot thick
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: cork walls, yeah, in like industrial referators and stuff, and
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: they could get that down to like two inches of styrofoam,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: so it was really useful.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: I don't know if we said this too. It's like
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: really really cheap to manufacture as well.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, super cheap, And so it sounds like just this
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: wonder product. That's everything about it is great. But here's
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: where it goes dark. Here's where the VH one behind
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: the music. It's probably like thirty forty minutes into the
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: VH one, right before the commercial break, they'll say, and
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: that's when things cut dark. Because, of course, styrene is
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: dangerous if you're just talking about health problems, central nervous
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: system problems, headaches, depression, fatigue. Obviously, if you're breathing this
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: stuff in, it's no good. It's no good for your
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: skin and your eyes. And you might think, well, what's
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: the big deal, because we're not breathing that stuff in,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: But if you work at one of these places, at manufacturers,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: you totally are.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And they've followed people who work in styrene plants
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: and found that the neurotoxicity makes them kind of dull
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: and a little dippy, kind of like you're drunk and
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: your reaction times are slower. And we're talking styrene itself,
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: the monomer that's the basis of polystyrene foam. Right. Yeah,
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: it's been shown to cause birth effects, reproductive defects, cancer.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Like you said, it's a bad jam. Polystyrene seems to
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: be not nearly as dangerous. The problem is the way
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: that we make polystyrene. There's still styrene that can break
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: off essentially from the polymer and float around and get
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: into your body, and that's no good.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think they've since the mid eighties, they've found
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: styrene and samples of human fat tissue. Of course, the
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: public health organizations are saying, like they do with everything
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: like that, like, oh, it's not enough to really worry
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: about it. Everyone's got a little styrene in their fat,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: don't sweat it. But in twenty eighteen it was bad
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: enough as a potential carcinogen that the World Health Organization
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: raised it from possible carcinogen to probable carcinogen, and imagine it
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: won't be long till they're just like, can we all
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: just admit it's a carcinogen.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure that the polystyrene companies are fighting that
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: last tooth and nail. Yeah, So we should say that
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: most of the most of the studies that have shown
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: like styrene's bad for you, Like we said, looked at
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: workers who who work around styrene, and we don't work
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: around styrene. We're just podcasters. You probably don't work around
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: styrene either, So like you said, it's not it's not
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: like they're not clutching their pearls over this or whatever.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: But it does seem like this thing where the more
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: that we look at it, the more problems we find
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: from it, and the more we come to understand that
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: actually there's probably more exposure to styrene than we thought. Like,
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: if you look across the board, everyone will tell you.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: Anyone who knows anything about polystyrene, I should say, well, say,
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: do not microwave your polystyrene to go container. Yeah, ever, never,
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: just don't ever do it. Because they found that that
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: polystyrene can leach styrene into your food, and you eat
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: that stuff, you don't want to do that. And there's
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: even types of containers, polystyrene containers that have like three
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: little wavy lines and says microwaves safe for microwaveable or
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: something like that, and those supposedly you can microwaves with
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: no because what that refers to is the container will
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: survive it. It has nothing to do with whether or
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: not there's going to be chemicals leaching into your food.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: They're just saying this container won't melt. In your mind,
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: that's it. So you never ever ever do that, just
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: take the extra step of dumping it onto a plate
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: for Pete's sake.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And you know, especially hot things, especially
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: acidic things like oh, I don't know, hot coffee. They
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: found that, you know, that stuff can leach into your
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: body as styrene.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think they said that it starts leeching out
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: at about one hundred and four degrees fahrenheit forty degrees celsius.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Not that hot.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's used specifically to keep liquids and foods hot,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: I guess, or cold. But you know, but hot is
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: the problem.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I think it still can leach out when
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: it's even cool or room temperature, but heat is where
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: it really starts to jack up.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So hey, if you get a salad and it's
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: in one of those stupid things, put that in a
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: nice ceramic bowl as well.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Put it in a solo cup. No, there's a bunch
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: of other impacts that it has, specifically environmentally.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Should we break?
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Are we gonna break? Okay?
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: I feel like that's a third act sort of thing.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, Well, man, I'm glad you caught me because
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: I was about to take off.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Right, you're grounded. We'll be right back, all right, since
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: I rudely cut off of Josh Off when he was
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: trying to talk about or Joff.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: That's a new good new name g E O F
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: F your favorite spelling of Jeff. Yeah, but you have
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: to say it like Joff. If you're going to go
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: to the troubles spelling Jeff like Joff, you should say Jeff.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Anyway, I cut off Jeff when you start to get
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: hot on the environment, and so I'm gonna let you
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: take it away because the environmental disaster is basically into
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: three categories, right yeah.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: Air pollution, threats to marine life, and then solid waste.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: Those are the big three environmental impacts. We found that
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: that it poses.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the air pollution. You might be thinking, like, well,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: I don't. I don't get it, Like it's just blung
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: into the air. It's in the manufacturing process. Those blowing
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: agents that we talked about used and making both EPs
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: and xps. They for decades and decades they were using
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: CFCs chlorofluorocarbons, and then everyone's like, now, we can't use
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: that stuff anymore. So we stopped using that stuff, and
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: they switched over to hydrofluorocarbons in this case specifically HFC
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: DASH one thirty four little A. But that stuff's awful too.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really powerful greenhouse gas that traps heat
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: fourteen hundred and thirty times more efficiently than carbon dioxide. Man,
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: that's a lot. They have other stuff that's way worse
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: than that, But that's still not good, especially considering how
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: much styrofoam is made every year. Right, Yeah, for sure.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: But so that's a problem with the extruded version. Apparently
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: the expanded version doesn't have nearly the same problem because
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: it uses a different blowing agent. The best reason I
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: could come up with, and this is all supposition, is
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: that the extra version keeps its blowing agent trapped into
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: its structure.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why it uses a different one than the
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: expanded one. The expanded one, when it's blowing agent vaporizes,
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: it creates I guess essentially pockets that get filled with air,
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: so the blowing agent gets replaced with air. So they
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: use a much less dangerous or potent greenhouse gas wise,
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: gas pentane. It's like ten times more efficient at trapping
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: heat than carbon dioxide. So you know, big woop. So
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: the big problem as far as air pollution goes is
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: with the expanded version, the styrophoam version.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. You mentioned threats to marine life. That's
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: a pretty obvious one because it's used so much out there.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Booize again and like any like boogie board or kind
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: of floaty thing that you're using, floating docks that I
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: mentioned a few times, fish boxes that hold the fish
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: that you catch when you're out at sea, and that.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: The same thing is that nineteen fifty seven ice cooler. Yeah.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's a good point. But the problem with all
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: this stuff is that when a buoy is floating out
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: there that's made a styrofoam or there's a floating dock,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: it's not gonna stay pristine. You know, it's gonna chip away,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: and it's gonna degrade, and it's gonna start to float
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: away in little bitty pieces. Birds are coming along and
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: eating that stuff. When it's floating on top, it'll get
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: heavier as it goes. It'll attract other organisms that make it,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: you know, not floatable, and it will sink and then
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden it's eaten in the water and
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: on the bottom of the sea floor by other marine animals.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: Yes, And the reason why it starts to break down,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: like say, if it's part of your marina dock, is
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: because it's exposed to sunlight and UV radiation of different
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: types break down. Polystyrene actually can break it down within
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: a few years as a matter of fact, when it's
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: exposed to sunlight. The problem is is a bunch of
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: that stuff never gets exposed to sunlight. We throw it
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: away and it gets buried in a landfill. And there
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: are plenty of other types of waste that are not
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: great to throw into a landfill, but they're biodegradable as
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: far as we've known. Until very recently, styrofoam is not biodegradable.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: It's only chemically degradable, and it takes centuries for it
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: to chemically degrade within a landfill. And because they're so
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: big and bulky, even though they're very light, they're still
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: usually in large shapes or they can be. They take
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: up a lot of space in those landfills. So they
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: take up a lot of space, and they don't break
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: down to free up space for again centuries, which someone
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: pointed out, I believe that essentially every piece of styrofoam
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: that was ever made is still around in some shape
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: or form on Earth.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's not the kind of like staying power
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: that should inspire you.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: Right. Well, the thing something that stuck out to me, Chuck,
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: when you said earlier about how they're derived from petrol petrochemicals.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: The fact that styrene is found in petroleum. Petroleum is
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: compressed ancient plant matter, right, Yeah, So that styrene that
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: was originally in plants is still around millions of millions
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: of hours later in the petroleum that we're extracting from
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: the ground. That just goes to show you the kind
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: of staying power that thing has.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Wow, that's incredible. Yeah, because of all these problems,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: of course, there's been many movements over the years to
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: get rid of it. It depends on the state you
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: live in, probably, or maybe even the community that you
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: live in. What kinds of bands have been put into place.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: I think Berkeley, California, no surprise, and Suffolk County, New
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: York again no surprise, were the first communities in the
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighties to put a band in place for this stuff. Yeah,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: fourteen different states have enacted bands on styrofoam. They don't
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: always hold up because, of course, you've got these companies
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: that are going to fight them tooth and nail. You said,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: fight them in court. You've also got city governments and
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: aren't necessarily going to enforce stuff too, right, Yeah.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: They tend to be very shy about getting sued, especially
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: when their budgets are kind of tight. Right. Yeah, So
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: if you're a big, bad plastic company. Apparently Dark Container
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: is one of the more aggressive players in this in
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: lobbying for styrofoam to stick around, all you have to
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: do is show up and be like, you know, we
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: would hate to sue you guys into bankruptcy. This seems
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: like a really nice town and the city's going to
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: be like, I don't even remember the styrofoam ban you're
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: talking about.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or we'd hate to close down these warehouses that
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: employ people in your state, right, which is what they
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: did in Maryland. Maryland banned the home and the Dark
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Container company shut down two warehouses. They're employed close to
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: one hundred workers, and that is how they played that game.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they did it in California too, in twenty twenty four.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: They put one hundred and seventy five of their workers
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: out of work. And they always say, well, it's because
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: of this ban. What I understand, these bands don't affect
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: like warehousing or transportation of this stuff within the state
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: or outside of the state. It just seems like it's
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: a vindictive move.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: It probably helps her bottom line, I would imagine in
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: some way.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: I guess. I don't know. But from from what I understand,
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: the aggressive lobbying that they engage in, it, I don't know.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: It seems like, I mean, they really want Syrophoam to
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: stick around, and they're fighting a tougher and tougher battle
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: each year.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: Now, Yeah, I think what I meant was, I bet
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: they're not financially hurting their company by shuttering these warehouses.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: No, I'm not. I'm sure not. I'm sure even if
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: they do, it's negligible, you know, to punish a state
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: into submission.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: There's also pressure campaigns. You know. McDonald's is one of
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: the early ones in the nineteen eighties, and I guess
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: if they quit in the nineties. It was kind of
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: fully in the eighties when people like human beings would
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: you know, protest or just sort of raise a ruckus
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: over this stuff. And they got together and there were
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: a few tries that like, hey, you shouldn't worry about
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: it too much, because we do it this way, we
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: only use this much. They really wanted to hang on
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: to them. But finally, like you mentioned in nineteen ninety,
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: they said, all right, we'll use paper. And you know,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: you should be housing that cheeseburger the second it gets
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: into your car anyway, right, Yeah.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: Pretty much. I mean just tell them to put it
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: in your hands without even a paper wrapper.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess if you've got to get
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: it and you can't eat it in your car, I
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: have to carry it somewhere. It's not gonna be as hot.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: But I don't know house. I mean, housing fast food
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: in the cars is a rich tradition that needs to
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: be upheld.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: For sure, ever since there were cars, and ever since
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: they were fast food.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how else are you going to find, you know,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: three year old French fries under your car seat when
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: you vacuum it. That look exactly the same as they
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: did the day they got down there.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: They don't taste quite the same, but they do look
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: like it, don't they.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so a.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: Lot of people say, okay, well we got all this polystyrene,
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: and it does provide a lot of benefits, even though
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: it seems like the health and environmental benefits are kind
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: of racking up against it. Maybe there's something we can
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: do to recycle it instead. And kind of at the outset,
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: you were pointing out just how hard it is to
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: recycle this stuff. And one reason why it's so hard
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: is because these are big, oftentimes bulky items, especially when
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: you put a bunch of style. I mean you can
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: attest if Emily's collecting stuff, it's a nightmare. Yeah, it
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: takes up a lot of space. Even though it's all light.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: You could lift all of it with one hand, but
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: it takes up a lot of space. Right, So, if
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: you have a truck that is spending a bunch of
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: money on gas to haul recyclables to a recycling center,
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: and then they get paid for that load in return
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: that styrofoam. I mean they get paid by the pound,
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: So that styrofoam takes up a whole truck, but it
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: does not add up to a lot of money. So
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: no one wants to haul this stuff. That's one problem.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: And that problem also belies an a pro styrofoam argument
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: that you'll frequently run into, and that is that it
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: has a small carbon footprint because it's so light, it
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: takes so little gas and fuel of all kinds to
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: transport it by ocean rail truck. The problem is is
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: you still have that bulky thing, so you actually are
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: probably hiring more transportation to move styrofoam stuff because yeah,
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: it's light, but it takes up a lot of space
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: in the truck. So I think that that's kind of
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: a in disingenuous argument in favor of styrofoam.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: I think you're probably right. Another problem with recycling it
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: is a lot of the foams will have pigments in them.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: They might be colored, or they may have flame retardants
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: that make it not as or completely unrecyclable. Along with
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: food contamination, and then, like I mentioned at the beginning,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: just the cost of this, it's pretty cheap to make,
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: so there's not a lot of incentives for company to
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: try and recycle it. There's a little more promise in
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: upcycling it by breaking it down into its various chemical constituents,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: some of which have some pretty high value. But as
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: far as recycling, it just doesn't make a lot of
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: cost effective sense for a company or a recycling firm.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: Right. I was reading a J Store Daily article on this,
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: and they profile a company in Oregon called Aegilicks and
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: they upcycle styrofoam into petroleum. Again, they turn it back
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: into too crude oil, which can in turn be used
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: for like jet fuel and other like really high quality fuels.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: But that they're definitely not. They're in the minority as
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: far as recycling companies go.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Another thing, if you're you know, into
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: helping the environment and recycling and stuff like that, don't
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: be fooled just because you see the little chasing arrows
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: recycling symbol, because that is on so many things. You
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: have to look at the number and then know what
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: that number means, and you know, you can look all
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: that stuff up but the ones and twos are generally,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: although not entirely consistently recycled, that they have the best
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: chance at being recycled. But something with a number six
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: on it, it's probably not being recycled.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: No, that's polystyrene's number, and it, like I mean, for
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: all the reasons we just said it, Like you said,
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: it's probably not being recycled. And apparently some environmentalists say
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: that whole chasing arrows application for the plastics was basically
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: made up by plastic companies to make you feel like, oh, Okay,
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: this thing can be recycled. I don't have to feel
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: bad about using it for two minutes and then throwing
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: it away. Yeah, so there are Like I said, up
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: until very recently, styrofoam was considered to be non biodegradable,
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: and there are not many things, including plastics, that are
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: not biodegradable. Right, they're starting to find that there are
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: some might crobes out there that have an ability to
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: break it down. Apparently they're found in the guts of
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: meal worms, wax worms, yeah, some kinds of insect larvae,
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: and that these things will feed on cyrofoam and they
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: will break it down. So thoroughly that you could actually
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: eat these worms afterwards. It's just metabolized into harmless stuff.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: And even the solid waste they excreete just keep it
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: in the soil and eat food grown from the soil.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: The problem is is this is a really new kind
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: of revelation as far as I know, and it takes
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: a lot of those things to break down styrofoam, and
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: we're making way more syrofoam than these worms can possibly handle.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, the size of that worm farm would
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: be tremendously large. But you did fine. I mean, boy,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: you texted me yesterday that something can actually melt styrofoam.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you say what it is. But my question,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: my friend, is does that is there an application for
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: that or is that just a factoid?
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: This is something you can do, like if you I
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: hate packing peanuts and so I've done this before with them,
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: but it's it's a slog so probably people can actually
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: do it. But any organic solvent, and in particular acetone
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: that's one I've always used, can dissolve styrofoam into basically nothing.
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: You can take an entire beambag chair worth of pellets
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: and melt it. All down into nothingness in a cup
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: of acetone. It's really neat to see.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: And oh, just like very slowly adding it in.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, little by little, But it doesn't take
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: very long for it to break down. It's not like
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: instantly dissolving. But it's not you know, days or anything
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: like that either.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: And doesn't that create probably some awful thing. I mean,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: you don't want to chase that down out of the
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: solo cup, right?
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: No? I still have that mason jar of acetone with
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: syrophoam in it because I have no idea what to
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: do with it now.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: I think you spur it in the backyard and forget
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: about it.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: I'll just drop it off at a number six recycling center.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: Oh great, you got anything else about styrofoam?
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: I got nothing else. Try and avoid it if you can.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, yeh, since Chuck told you to avoid styrofoam, obviously, everybody.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: That means it's time for listener mail.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: That's right, promised to Billy Joel, And here we go
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: from Levi and hang Zuo. China was giving me a
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: little bit of a break when I bagged on one
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: of my favorite performer songs. We didn't start the fire,
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: He said, Chuck, You're in good company, because Billy Joel
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: himself is called we Didn't start the Fire the worst
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: musical thing I've ever written, calling out the simplicity of
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: its musical structure. Someone who has only recently gotten into
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: his music that has personally ranked all of his one
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: hundred and seventeen studio recordings, Wow, you went hard. I
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: tend to agree. Fun song, but it doesn't hold a
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: candle to the rest of the catalog. As for his
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: best and favorite, he's cited scenes from an Italian restaurant
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: great song, and you may be right, I know that
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: one great song off of Glass Houses Okay, as two
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: of his favorites. And if Josh hasn't heard Miami twenty seventeen,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: the one you mentioned, make sure he starts with the
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: live version from these songs in the attic album miles
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: better than the studio version. Of my opinion, keep repping
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: the piano man, and that is Levi and hang Zou China.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: And he sent a link to the YouTube of the
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Howard Stern appearance where Billy Joel called that his worst
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: musical outing and he was like, the lyrics are fine,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: he said, I don't hate the song, but he just
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: said musically it's just very simplistic and not my best work.
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think everybody can basically agree that.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but mister Joel, we wish you good health and recovery.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: He got a lot of fans thinking about you and
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: your family right now.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great, Chuck. I think that this Billy Joel
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: saga should just continue. Every third, fourth, fifth listener mail
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: should be about Billy Joel.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: I think I hope so. And you know, I didn't
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: even mention the deep cut, so maybe we'll just surprise
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: people here and there.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: With those yeap, just pay him out slowly, man, patients. Yeah,
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: if you want to be like Levi and you're in
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: China or anywhere else and want to get in touch
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: with this about Billy Joel or anything else, you can
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: send us email to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 46:18
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• 46:22
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