How We Learned to Relax and Love Polystyrene

Or, how we reached the height of cynical plasticity.

Image artwork by the author

Polystyrene is the perfect plastic because it’s versatile and cheap. And if you are completely callous to its environmental effects, you’d have to agree with me. Let’s give it the benefit of the doubt — maybe there’s a way to deal with the research that finds polystyrene to be 100% not biodegradable.

Among its many virtues, polystyrene is crystal clear and economical to use for throwaway packaging. It is flexible and lightweight, plus polystyrene can easily be molded at low temperatures. If it is extruded with hydrocarbons (yes, especially the kind that negatively affect the ozone layer), it produces another versatile product, Styrofoam™. Styrofoam is a wonderful, lightweight insulator that is likewise dangerous to the environment — especially because animals tend to eat it without realizing the hazards.

Because it is so chemically inert, polystyrene resists biodegradation. However, it can be easily dissolved in a wide variety of toxic solvents. Recycling it thus far has not been economically feasible, but it can be recycled when it’s mandated. As for other forms of disposal, polystyrene burns readily, producing carbon dioxide, water vapor, plus a host of polluting chemicals. Only at extremely high incineration temperatures does it burn completely. Despite this…