How Styrofoam Works

All those to-go cups and food containers aren’t actually Styrofoam but those cups and Styrofoam are both forms of foam polystyrene, one of the rare materials that isn’t biodegradable. Which is a problem, because we make – and throw away – so much of it. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:00Speaker 03

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:10Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here, too. And this is a good old-fashioned, rootin', tootin', wholesome, down-home hour of fellowship with Stuff You Should Know.

• 1:22Speaker 04

  Wow. You sound like the coolest youth director in the building.

• 1:27Josh Clark?

  You nailed it, Chuck. You totally nailed it.

• 1:30Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:31Josh Clark?

  I'm also the only youth director in the building right now.

• 1:34Speaker 04

  That's right. I had to, I had to hang up my spurs.

• 1:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah. You got run out on a rail, didn't you?

• 1:41Speaker 04

  They were like, if there's one thing that's certainly not cool, this youth director's in their 50s, so you're, you're out.

• 1:46Josh Clark?

  Right. I'm still in my 40s, so it's kind of like David Bowie said, don't trust any youth director over 50.

• 1:52Speaker 04

  That's right. You know, he also sung about styrofoam.

• 1:57Josh Clark?

  No, he didn't.

• 1:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, I thought I could get you.

• 2:01Josh Clark?

  No. I could see it. I mean, like, it was, when Bowie was Bowie, it was, styrofoam was still this amazing wonder product. But I gotta say, Chuck, I feel like in the last decade or so, maybe it started to get kind of a bad name.

• 2:16Speaker 04

  I think you're right. And we're gonna, I mean, we're gonna talk about the science of it all, how it's made and clear up some misconceptions and reinforce some

• 2:25Josh Clark?

  Conceptions?

• 2:28Speaker 04

  Uh, but the first thing we should probably clear up, and big thanks to Olivia, by the way, she knocked another one out of the park.

• 2:33Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 2:33Speaker 04

  Uh, is that Styrofoam is a brand name and Levia, Levia is keen to point out that it's not just like, you know, Band-Aid or Kleenex, like this one actually matters. Because the Styrofoam that you and I think of, and most people probably think of is like, you know, what, what to-go container or an old school coffee cup or to-go coffee cup might be.

• 2:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 2:59Speaker 04

  That's actually not Styrofoam. That's technically something called EPS, Expanded Poly Styrene. Whereas the brand name Styrofoam is Extruded Poly Styrene, and that's mainly just like, used for insulation and, you know, cut into big boards and stuff like that.

• 3:18Josh Clark?

  Right. And you're like, well, what's the big deal? They're actually basically exactly the same products. They have slightly different properties, but it's all the same raw materials, very similar production processes, and the final product is, for all intents and purposes, the same. The big difference is the Styrofoam is used for years and years and years and years. Like, once you put it in to insulate a radiant heat floor, you're not going to tear that up after a couple of days and throw it in the dump.

• 3:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:49Josh Clark?

  With the other stuff that Expanded Poly Styrene, the stuff we think of as Styrofoam, that's the stuff we use once for a few minutes and just throw away and get another new one. And that's posing a bigger and bigger problem as, as time goes on.

• 4:05Speaker 04

  That's right. Unless you're at my house, then Emily collects every bit of Styrofoam and drives it to the specific Styrofoam place.

• 4:11Josh Clark?

  Charm?

• 4:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, which still may not be recycling it.

• 4:15Josh Clark?

  Oh, no, really?

• 4:16Speaker 04

  Oh, I don't know. I mean, I think Charm does the right thing, but I just, I don't know. I just think so much of that stuff is dubious. Once you drop it off, like, who knows what even happens to it?

• 4:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 4:26Speaker 04

  And I don't mean that in a conspiracy minded way. I just mean that, as we'll see, recycling styrofoam, there's just not a lot of reason to do it if you're styrofoam people, because you can just make it, again, so cheaply.

• 4:37Josh Clark?

  It's true. And for those of you, yeah, it is sad, for sure. And for those of you outside of the Atlanta area, Charm is the one recycling center in the entire metro Atlanta area where you can take styrofoam, stands for the Center for Hard-to-Recycle Materials.

• 4:54Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, God bless Emily for doing all that, because I certainly wouldn't.

• 4:59Josh Clark?

  I know. It's a hall. It's not really conveniently.

• 5:03Speaker 04

  No. Neither is saving tons and tons of styrofoam to go to Charm once a month, or whatever. But she does it. So, you know, she does the right thing.

• 5:11Josh Clark?

  So, let's talk about all this stuff, because I find it pretty fascinating. There's some science involved. There's some environmentalism involved. There's some corporate tomfoolery involved. I'm excited about this one.

• 5:21Speaker 04

  Well, I'm glad.

• 5:22Josh Clark?

  Good. Well, I'm going to kick it off, because styrofoam, well, let's start. We're talking about polystyrene. And polystyrene is a form of styrene. And styrene occurs naturally in a lot of different plants. It's just kind of part of the ecosystem. But it was first distilled out in, I think, 1839.

• 5:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:45Josh Clark?

  By a German pharmacist. I'm going with Edouard Simon in German?

• 5:51Speaker 04

  You know? I don't know. Simone? That sounds French.

• 5:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that doesn't sound very German.

• 5:56Speaker 04

  I mean, just call him Eddie Simon.

• 5:58Josh Clark?

  Eddie Simon. In 1839, he was a pharmacist who got his hands on a sweet gum tree from America, which was probably very exotic in Germany at the time. And he got styrene out of there. And he figured out how to take styrene molecules, which are a monomer, and put a bunch of them together to make a polymer. And what he got was a rigid, plastic solid. What we're talking about is a type of plastic. And he's like, I can't do anything with this, and just moved along.

• 6:26Speaker 04

  Yeah. And it stayed that way for close to 100 years, like 90 years or so. And finally, in the 1930s, again, a lot of stuff comes about because they're trying to figure out some sort of military use for something. And that was the case here. As we were between wars, the military was like, hey, how can we use this stuff? The literal brand name Styrofoam, which again is the XPS, the stuff that's used in flooring and like wall insulation and stuff like that. That was invented a couple of times. The first time by a Swedish inventor named Carl Munters, who developed it in the 30s, but again, didn't have a lot of practical use for it. And then Dow came along, the Dow Chemical Company during World War II.

• 7:10Speaker 04

  And they had an engineer named Ray McIntyre, who said, I'm looking to try and get a synthetic, or I guess he was charged with trying to develop a synthetic substitute for rubber.

• 7:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he was facing five years for it.

• 7:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, to use as a flexible insulator. And he combined styrene with isobutylene. And what he got was something he didn't expect, which was this very airy, the isobutylene formed bubbles in the styrene. So it was what we think of as Styrofoam, the super light, very airy, very insulating, water resistant, flexible material.

• 7:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So imagine taking something, like imagine taking a seedy jewel case, because that's polystyrene, and chopping it up into little tiny pellets. And then you're messing around with it and adding isobutylene. And all of a sudden, those pellets turn into little foamy balls. The exact same thing that if you have a very lightweight beanbag chair, it's full of those. It's polystyrene foam. That's the basis of the whole thing, right? These little tiny pellets. And he must have just been as surprised as the day is long.

• 8:17Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, Dow was certainly surprised and delighted. And they were like, hey, let's just start manufacturing this stuff. We got plenty of things we can do. And somebody said, wait a minute, there's this other guy named Carl Munters, who already developed, you know, and has patented this concept. And Dow said, great, let's just write him, cut him a check. And now we can patent capital S Styrofoam. And they did so. And they started saying, hey, you know, we can build like floating docks out of this stuff. And there's all sorts of marine uses, basically, because it floats really well.

• 8:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah, cuz that extruded polystyrene, the actual Styrofoam brand type, that is very water resistant. It's extremely lightweight. It's very buoyant. So it just automatically made sense to apply it to different like water-based situations, right?

• 9:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure. As far as the stuff that we think of as Styrofoam, around the same time in the 1930s, a German company called IP Farben, who I know we've talked about them before several times.

• 9:16Josh Clark?

  They're the ones who created the gas that was used in the gas chambers.

• 9:20Speaker 04

  Ah, okay.

• 9:22Josh Clark?

  They've come up a time or two. They don't have a great reputation these days.

• 9:25Speaker 04

  No, I know we definitely talked about them a few times, but they were developing the EPS, the polystyrene foam, the stuff, again, that we think of as Styrofoam, like, you know, the cups and the to-go containers and all that stuff. And both sides in World War II started saying, hey, this stuff is super light and super insulating, works good as a shock absorber. We can use it in various parts to make them lighter, so let's get going with it.

• 9:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah. The thing is, I guess it's part of the extrusion process. It essentially is only made in board form, long, thinish boards, right? Kind of like, it looks like drywall, but it's foam. If you've ever been to a do-it-yourself hardware store and they have like big rectangles of foam, that is Styrofoam. It might not be Styrofoam brand, but it's that exact same thing, right? And there's not that many uses to it, but the stuff it does do, like block out heat, insulate is another word for it. It does really, really well, right? So the XPS has like some limited applications.

• 10:38Josh Clark?

  The EPS, the stuff we think of, like the Styrofoam cups and all that stuff, that has Like limitless applications because you can take that stuff as part of the production process and push it into a mold and mold it into any shape you want. And they definitely did that in the post-war era of prosperous, better living through chemistry. Styrofoam was a big, a big star of that at first.

• 11:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, and you know, you, you can probably name any sort of insulation application that it was used for. Everything from, you know, ice cream containers, like, you know, when you go to taste all the ice cream and then finally settle on one. Those big coolers, those are lined with thick styrofoam. They used them for Christmas ornaments because they were super light and won't weigh down a tree.

• 11:30Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 11:31Speaker 04

  All kinds, again, of marine applications, you know, buoys, floating docks, in boats. Again, you can mold it however you want, but, you know, the styrofoam coolers that, you know, you pick up at the gas station because you just have a hankering for cold beer and you're on the road. You want to drink and drive.

• 11:50Josh Clark?

  Smart.

• 11:51Speaker 04

  Just kidding. But those that you see in the convenience store, those started popping up in the 1950s. But we didn't see the cups until the 1960s, right?

• 12:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah, apparently Chick-fil-A was one of the first restaurants to adopt styrofoam cups for to-go stuff, right? That was in, in 1960, I think.

• 12:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, right on the nose from what, the Dart Manufacturing Company of Michigan?

• 12:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so Dart Manufacturing got into this and they got into it so heavy that they actually ended up changing their name to Dart Container Corporation. They're one of the leading companies or leading producers of what you would consider styrofoam containers.

• 12:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:30Josh Clark?

  So they were the ones that started producing this, started kind of getting it out there like, hey, you know how you don't like your customers sitting around taking an hour and a half to drink their Coke?

• 12:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:40Josh Clark?

  Buy one of our styrofoam cups, they'll just get right out of your hair and somebody else can come in and patronize your restaurant, right? So it caught on pretty quick. I think 7-Eleven was the first chain to actually start using styrofoam cups for coffee, which as we'll see was a bad idea right out of the gate.

• 12:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:59Josh Clark?

  And by the seventies, it was like, anywhere you went and got coffee, it came in a white. And again, I'm sorry, I realize I keep using the word Styrofoam. You couldn't do any different than I am right now.

• 13:11Speaker 04

  Right.

• 13:12Josh Clark?

  Trying to talk about this.

• 13:13Speaker 04

  It's impossible.

• 13:15Josh Clark?

  But they, that, that just became the standard for this whole thing. Like a Styrofoam cup, that's what your coffee came in until Starbucks came along.

• 13:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, for decades, basically. And then Starbucks did lead the charge to sort of, you know, get rid of that. And then, you know, a bunch of people followed suit, thankfully. But, you know, when fast food came along and takeout food got more popular, obviously, that's gonna grow, grow, grow, the Styrofoam business. I'm, I'm very glad Livia included this because I would have if she wouldn't have, and you probably would have too. But if you grew up a kid in the eighties, then you remember the McDonald's McDLT.

• 13:52Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 13:53Speaker 04

  If you don't remember, I think we've mentioned it before, but it was, the idea was, they're like, hey, no one wants all this hot, droopy lettuce and steamy tomatoes on their hamburgers. They want that stuff to be cold and they want their burger to be hot. And they want to do it like you do at home, is you add that stuff right before you put it in your mouth for the right mixture. And that's what the McDLT was. It was not only an offending Styrofoam container, but it was a double. Because you had one side that had, it keeps the hot stuff hot and the cool side, cool.

• 14:23Josh Clark?

  That's right.

• 14:24Speaker 04

  And none other than Seinfeld's own Jason Alexander sang and danced in a TV commercial in the eighties, extolling the virtues of the McDLT container itself.

• 14:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah, wearing a skinny tie. I think he's wearing a blazer with the sleeves rolled up even, maybe?

• 14:39Speaker 04

  Probably pushed up.

• 14:40Josh Clark?

  Like, he, he stinks of 1985.

• 14:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:46Josh Clark?

  The thing about the McDLT container, and yeah, if you don't know what we're talking about, just go look it up. Once you took the top off, you could actually like, close the bottoms together and put your sandwich together like that, using your Styrofoam container.

• 15:00Speaker 04

  Oh, really?

• 15:01Josh Clark?

  For those who were like, really good at it, yeah.

• 15:03Speaker 04

  No, see, I don't know. I never ate that because that wasn't my jam, but it seemed like it would just kind of not do a very great job of that.

• 15:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah, no, McDLT never passed my lips either because of the L and the T. But I have to say, one of the things that makes me really nostalgic for my childhood is looking at old Styrofoam McDonald's containers.

• 15:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's hard not to just see that, that yellow.

• 15:29Speaker 04

  Container with all the Ms. All over it.

• 15:31Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 15:31Speaker 04

  And not pining for it, but just, you know, just like nostalgia does.

• 15:34Josh Clark?

  Definitely takes you back. What knocked me out is, as we'll see, it wasn't until 1990 that they stopped using those things.

• 15:41Speaker 04

  Yeah. And we'll get to, you know, how it's been sort of weeded out here and there, but it's still a booming industry. I think last year worldwide, there were 15.2 million total tons of polystyrene produced. And about 60% of that is in the Asia-Pacific region. Apparently, it's a growing thing, but it's growing much slower in Europe and North America than it is in industrializing areas around the world.

• 16:09Josh Clark?

  Right. Most of it goes in the packing industry. I think a third of it is used by packaging industry. Those packing peanuts were invented by a guy named Robert E. Holden back in 1965. Household appliances uses another quarter of it. I didn't understand that. I think some of it is packing materials. You know, you have to pull all those boards of styrofoam out of your new refrigerator.

• 16:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think it's also in some of the units, like in a washer. Aren't there like big chunks of styrofoam? Is it just like air?

• 16:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 16:41Speaker 04

  Take up airspace?

• 16:42Josh Clark?

  I think that's part of it. And then also like in that same fridge, there's like around the dials and controls, they'll use some for insulation. They don't actually insulate the fridge with it because you can't create an airtight seal between two boards. But they do use it in other places in the fridge where you don't need an airtight seal.

• 17:02Speaker 04

  Well, I think this is off to a capital start. Shall we take a break and let you take over?

• 17:08Josh Clark?

  Sure. I think that's a capital idea.

• 17:11Speaker 04

  All right, we'll be right back.

• 17:27Speaker 04

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• 18:30Josh Clark?

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• 19:47Josh Clark?

  Okay Chuck, so we're back and you said that I would be taking over and since I'm taking over, I'm in charge and I'm delegating it to you.

• 19:54Speaker 04

  I can start this part, but you know when to come in because it's chemistry and that's famously the only class I ever failed.

• 20:02Josh Clark?

  I'm just fascinated by it. So yeah, this works out just perfectly.

• 20:06Speaker 04

  That's great. If we're talking about styrene today, another name for it is vinyl benzene because it is a vinyl, as we'll see. It does not come from a plant like Eddie Simon used back in Germany in the 1830s. The modern process is, starts with, you know, it comes from petroleum products these days and specifically a couple called benzene and ethylene. They're combined with a catalyst called aluminum chloride to eventually produce ethyl benzene. You get that in a gas state, process it at a high temperature with another catalyst. It's a process called dehydrogenating and finally you have your styrene.

• 20:44Josh Clark?

  Yes. Styrene is C8H8. Lots of carbon, lots of hydrogen together.

• 20:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:50Josh Clark?

  And in that styrene molecule, there are carbon atoms that have a double bond between them, right? Which means that they can share one. So when you take styrene, ammonomer, and put a bunch of them together to create a polymer, one of those double bonds kind of opens up and connects to another one and another one and another one. It forms a carbon chain, right? But if you look at the, I don't know what it's called, but like the chemical drawing, you know, of like the molecule with the lines and the Cs and the Hs and everything.

• 21:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, I feel like in most movies, that's rendered 3D so you can zoom it around and stuff.

• 21:25Josh Clark?

  Right. This is more like the written out shorthand that I'm talking about. I know what you're talking about.

• 21:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:31Josh Clark?

  I don't know what mine's called, but whatever that is for the polystyrene, if you look at it, it's a nice little carbon chain, but then there's these like medallions dangling off of them. Those are called phenyl groups and because of those things, the polymers can't form a really nice crystalline structure.

• 21:51Speaker 04

  Right.

• 21:52Josh Clark?

  Which means that you could, it's see-through. It's not particularly thick. It's brittle, so it can break and it's not flexible very much, right? And I was like, well, wait a minute. Crystal you think about is already see-through. But as far as chemistry goes, the more crystalline a structure is, the tighter the whole thing is put together. So the thicker and less see-through it is. So like steel is, has a very crystalline structure, even though, you know, I think rose quartz when I think of a crystalline structure. But that's wrong, wrong, wrong.

• 22:23Speaker 04

  Yeah. See, that's why I'm not good at chemistry. It's not very intuitive, is it?

• 22:27Josh Clark?

  I know, but I mean, this is pretty late in life. It's not like I was a chemistry whiz in, in high school. I'm not even sure if I took a chemistry class in high school.

• 22:35Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah?

• 22:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I got out of a lot of stuff. Never took trig.

• 22:40Speaker 04

  How'd you get out of that stuff?

• 22:42Josh Clark?

  I, I had my ways.

• 22:43Speaker 04

  Oh, okay. I won't ask any further.

• 22:46Josh Clark?

  So again, if you take the stuff, this polystyrene, you don't have anything that even resembles a foam cup. You have like what looks like a bunch of pellets that if you mash together, you would again, create a CD jewel case because that's exactly what they do to create those. You have to go add a couple of extra steps to create polystyrene foam.

• 23:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. And, you know, we said that that stuff was prone to cracking and very breakable. If you came about in the CD jewel case era, red solo cups too, are also the same thing. But you know, those CD jewel cases, if you had one long enough, it's gonna have a crack in it.

• 23:21Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah. And then you had to throw out the entire thing.

• 23:25Speaker 04

  No, no, no. It was almost a badge of honor. Like, look how long I've had this thing. It's, you can't even see through it anymore. It's cracked all over the place.

• 23:32Josh Clark?

  You can't even see Billy Joel's face.

• 23:34Speaker 04

  Right. By the way, well, I think we'll just follow up with the Billy Joel listener mail. But he, he announced he has a medical condition and he's canceling his tour for now. So it was very sad to see. Kind of right after we talked about him. I know.

• 23:47Josh Clark?

  Jinx?

• 23:48Speaker 04

  Hopefully he'll be, uh, he'll be okay though. But anyway.

• 23:51Josh Clark?

  I'm sure he will be.

• 23:52Speaker 04

  Uh, so these XPS boards that we keep talking about, uh, the capital S styrofoam that's used in insulation and stuff like that. Uh, how they make that is they melt those little beads that you were talking about, those little granules, uh, add chemicals, one of which is a blowing agent. And then they force that thing through a die, uh, as in a D I E, as in like die cast metal.

• 24:14Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 24:14Speaker 04

  Kind of thing.

• 24:15Josh Clark?

  Right. And then they're constantly pushing that stuff through and it's melting it and pressing it together. And that final product, those boards of polystyrene are really smooth. They're really thick. They're not very, they, they just look really uniform. And the reason why is because all of those cells, all those polystyrene foam pellets that you use in a beanbag chair, they get pressed together so tightly with so much pressure and heat that they, there's no space between them, basically.

• 24:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:44Josh Clark?

  Okay? With expanded polystyrene, the stuff that you make cups and containers out of, it's, it's slightly different. You take those same pellets, uh, and like you said, there's a blowing agent in there. Both kinds have a blowing agent, but they use different ones. And the blowing agent is this kind of gas that is put into, in little tiny bubbles, into the little polystyrene foam pellets. That's what makes it foamy. But if you take those same pellets and you, um, expose them to steam, they swell up because that blowing agent suddenly boils and vaporizes at very low temperatures. And they, the pellets expand to like 40 times their size and they melt together very easily.

• 25:28Josh Clark?

  And what you have now is essentially the raw material for, um, expanded polystyrene. That's why they call it expanded, which you can make everything from a coffee cup to a, a vintage Santa Claus door ornament face.

• 25:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly.

• 25:45Josh Clark?

  Do you remember those?

• 25:45Speaker 04

  Oh, totally.

• 25:47Josh Clark?

  I mean, that's another nostalgic thing.

• 25:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:49Josh Clark?

  I think you can get them still on like eBay.

• 25:52Speaker 04

  There's a lot of nostalgia around Styrofoam if you kind of really think about it, if you're a Gen Xer.

• 25:57Josh Clark?

  But that, I mean, that goes to show just how,

• 25:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:59Josh Clark?

  what a huge part it was of 20th century life.

• 26:03Speaker 04

  It really was. Yeah, for sure. So we mentioned, you know, those boards are really great at insulating, which is why they use it in like siding sometimes and stuff like that, or in ice cream coolers.

• 26:15Speaker 04

  One reason is because it is water resistant. If you have an insulating material that has moisture in it, that's no good because water conducts heat really well.

• 26:23Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 26:24Speaker 04

  So that's one good thing. But they do degrade over time. The board, you know, that blowing agent will leak out of those cells a little bit over time. So it's a little less insulating. And while it is water resistant, it's not completely water resistant. So when it does not resist a little bit of water, it has a really, AKA absorption.

• 26:44Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 26:45Speaker 04

  It has a really hard time getting rid of it again. So that just kind of knocks it down over time. But even considering depletion, it still has a really good thermal resistance and is still a really good insulator.

• 26:56Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's like twice as, twice as good, I guess, than

• 27:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:01Josh Clark?

  that roll out insulation that you can buy.

• 27:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I don't think we mentioned early on, you know, they were, they used to put like foot thick cork walls.

• 27:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 27:10Speaker 04

  in like industrial refrigerators and stuff. And they could get that down to like two inches of Styrofoam. So it was really useful.

• 27:17Josh Clark?

  I don't know if we said this too, it's like really, really cheap to manufacture as well.

• 27:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, super cheap. And so it sounds like just this wonder product that's, everything about it is great. But here's where it goes dark. Here's where the VH1 Behind the Music is probably like 35, 40 minutes into the VH1. Right before the commercial break, they'll say, and that's when things got dark. Because of course styrene is dangerous. If you're just talking about health problems, central nervous system problems, headaches, depression, fatigue, obviously if you're breathing this stuff in, it's no good. It's no good for your skin and your eyes. And you might think, well, what's the big deal? Because we're not breathing that stuff in. But if you work at one of these places that manufactures it, you totally are.

• 28:02Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and they've followed people who work in styrene plants and found that the neurotoxicity makes them kind of dull and a little dippy, kind of like you're drunk and your reaction times are slower. And we're talking styrene itself, the monomer that's the basis of polystyrene foam, right?

• 28:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:21Josh Clark?

  It's been shown to cause birth defects, reproductive defects, cancer, like you said, it's a bad jam. Polystyrene seems to be not nearly as dangerous. The problem is the way that we make polystyrene, there's still styrene that can break off essentially from the polymer and float around and get into your body. And that's, that's no good.

• 28:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think they've, since the mid 80s, they've found styrene in samples of human fat tissue. Of course, the public health organizations are saying like, they deal with everything like that, like, no, it's not enough to really worry about it. Everyone's got a little styrene in their fat. Don't sweat it. But in 2018, it was, it was bad enough as a potential carcinogen that the World Health Organization raised it from possible carcinogen to probable carcinogen. And I imagine it won't be long until they're just like, can we all just admit it's a carcinogen?

• 29:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I'm sure that the polystyrene companies are fighting that last one tooth and nail.

• 29:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:30Josh Clark?

  So we should say that most of the, um, most of the studies that have shown like styrene is bad for you, like we said, looked at workers who, um, who work around styrene and we don't work around styrene. We're just podcasters. You probably don't work around styrene either. So like you said, it's not, it's not like they're, they're not clutching their pearls over this or whatever, but it does seem like this thing where the more that we look at it, the more problems we find from it. And the more we come to understand that actually there, there's probably more exposure to styrene than we thought. Like if you look across the board, um, everyone will tell you, anyone who knows anything about polystyrene, I should say, will say, do not microwave your polystyrene, um, to-go container.

• 30:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:15Josh Clark?

  Ever, never. Just don't ever do it because they found that that polystyrene can leach styrene into your food and you eat that stuff. You don't want to do that. And there's even types of containers, um, polystyrene containers that, that have like three little wavy lines and says microwave safe or microwaveable or something like that. And those supposedly you can microwave your food with.

• 30:40Speaker 04

  Nah.

• 30:40Josh Clark?

  No, because what that refers to is the container will survive it. It has nothing to do with whether or not there's going to be chemicals leaching into your food. They're just saying this, this container won't melt in your microwave.

• 30:52Speaker 04

  Right.

• 30:53Josh Clark?

  That's it. So you never, ever, ever do that. Just take the extra step of dumping it onto a plate for heat's sake.

• 31:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, uh, for sure. And, you know, especially hot things, especially acidic things like, oh, I don't know, hot coffee. Uh, they found that, you know, that stuff can leach into your body as styrene.

• 31:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah. I think they said that it starts leaching out at about 104 degrees Fahrenheit, 40 degrees Celsius, not that hot.

• 31:19Speaker 04

  Yeah. And it's used specifically to keep liquids and foods hot, I guess, or, or cold, but you know, but hot is the problem.

• 31:27Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Yeah. I think it still can leach out when it's even cool or room temperature, but heat is where it really starts to jack up.

• 31:34Speaker 04

  Yeah. So hey, if you get a salad and it's in one of those stupid things, put that in a, in a nice ceramic bowl as well.

• 31:42Josh Clark?

  Put it in a solo cup.

• 31:44Speaker 04

  No.

• 31:45Josh Clark?

  There's a bunch of other impacts that it has specifically environmentally.

• 31:51Speaker 04

  Should we break?

• 31:52Josh Clark?

  Are we gonna break? Okay.

• 31:53Speaker 04

  I feel like that's a third act, sort of thing.

• 31:56Josh Clark?

  Okay. Well, man, I'm glad you caught me because I was about to take off.

• 32:00Speaker 04

  All right. You're grounded. We'll be right back.

• 32:19Speaker 04

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• 32:38Josh Clark?

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• 32:55Speaker 04

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• 33:22Speaker 04

  Hey, everybody. The holidays are coming up, so let us throw this out there. Are you prepared to host friends or family? Like, really prepared? Because there's a difference between having people stay at your house and properly hosting them.

• 33:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's what we thought. So maybe it's time for a little refresh. Well, we have a tip. For all things hosting, Wayfair delivers high-quality, customer-trusted products for your home, so you can host and celebrate without the stress.

• 33:47Speaker 04

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• 33:56Josh Clark?

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• 34:08Speaker 04

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• 34:32Speaker 04

  All right. Since I rudely cut Josh off when he was trying to talk about, or Joff.

• 34:37Josh Clark?

  That's a new, a good new name.

• 34:39Speaker 04

  G-E-O-F-F? Your favorite spelling of Jeff?

• 34:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah. But you have to say it like Joff. If you're gonna go to the trouble of spelling Jeff like Joff, you should say Joff.

• 34:48Speaker 04

  Anyway, I cut off Joff when he started to get hot on the environment. And so I'm gonna let you take it away, because the environmental disaster is basically into three categories, right?

• 35:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Air pollution, threats to marine life, and then solid waste. Those are the big three environmental impacts we found that it poses.

• 35:11Speaker 04

  Yeah. The air pollution, you might be thinking like, well, I don't get it. Like, it's just blowing into the air. It's in the manufacturing process. Those blowing agents that we talked about used in making both EPS and XPS, they, for decades and decades, they were using CFCs, chlorofluorocarbons. And then everyone's like, no, we can't use that stuff anymore. So we stopped using that stuff, and they switched over to hydrofluorocarbons, in this case specifically, HFC-134-A. But that stuff's awful, too.

• 35:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's a really powerful greenhouse gas that traps heat 1430 times more efficiently than carbon dioxide.

• 35:51Speaker 04

  Man.

• 35:52Josh Clark?

  That's a lot. They have, they have other stuff that's way worse than that, but that's still not good, especially considering how much styrofoam is made every year, right?

• 36:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure.

• 36:01Josh Clark?

  But so that's a problem with the extruded version. Apparently, the expanded version doesn't have nearly the same problem because it uses a different blowing agent. The best reason I could come up with, and this is all supposition, is that the extruded version keeps its blowing agent trapped into its structure.

• 36:20Speaker 04

  Hmm, okay, that makes sense.

• 36:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's why it uses a different one than the expanded one. The expanded one, when its blowing agent vaporizes, it creates, I guess, essentially pockets that get filled with air. So the blowing agent gets replaced with air. So they use a much less dangerous or potent greenhouse gas wise gas, pentane. It's like 10 times more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. So, you know, big whoop. So the big problem as far as air pollution goes is with the expanded version, the styrofoam version.

• 36:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure. You mentioned threats to marine life. That's a pretty obvious one because it's used so much out there. Buoys again, and like any, like boogie board or kind of floaty thing that you're using. Floating docks that I mentioned a few times. Fish boxes that hold the fish that you catch when you're out at sea.

• 37:14Josh Clark?

  Isn't that the same thing as with that 1957 ice cooler?

• 37:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, sometimes. That's a good point. But the problem with all this stuff is that when a buoy is floating out there that's made of styrofoam, or there's a floating dock, it's not going to stay pristine. You know, it's going to chip away and it's going to degrade and it's going to start to float away in little bitty pieces. Birds are coming, coming along and eating that stuff when it's floating on top. It'll get heavier as it goes. It'll attract other organisms that make it, you know, not floatable.

• 37:45Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 37:46Speaker 04

  And it will sink. And then all of a sudden, it's eaten in the water and on the bottom of the seafloor by other Marine animals.

• 37:52Josh Clark?

  Yes, and the reason why it starts to break down, like say if it's part of your marina dock, is because it's exposed to sunlight and UV radiation of different types break down polystyrene, actually can break it down within a few years, as a matter of fact, when it's exposed to sunlight. The problem is, is a bunch of that stuff never gets exposed to sunlight. We throw it away and it gets buried in a landfill.

• 38:19Speaker 04

  Right.

• 38:19Josh Clark?

  And there are plenty of other, you know, types of waste that are not great to throw into a landfill, but they're biodegradable. As far as we've known until very recently, styrofoam is not biodegradable.

• 38:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:34Josh Clark?

  It's only chemically degradable and it takes centuries for it to chemically degrade within a landfill. And because they're so big and bulky, even though they're very light, they're still usually in large shapes. Or they can be, they take up a lot of space in those landfills. So they take up a lot of space and they don't break down to to free up space for, again, centuries, which someone pointed out, I believe, that essentially every piece of styrofoam that was ever made is still around in some shape or form on earth.

• 39:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, and that's not the kind of like staying power that should inspire you.

• 39:11Josh Clark?

  Right. Well, the thing, something that stuck out to me, Chuck, when you said earlier about how they're derived from petrol, petrochemicals. The fact that styrene is found in petroleum, petroleum is compressed ancient plant matter, right?

• 39:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:28Josh Clark?

  So that styrene that was originally in plants is still around millions and millions of years later in the petroleum that we're extracting from the ground. That just goes to show you the kind of staying power that thing has.

• 39:40Speaker 04

  Yeah. Wow, that's incredible.

• 39:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 39:42Speaker 04

  Because of all these problems, of course, there's been many movements over the years to get rid of it.

• 39:49Speaker 04

  It depends on the state you live in probably, or maybe even the community that you live in, what kinds of bans have been put into place. I think Berkeley, California, no surprise, and Suffolk County, New York, again, no surprise, were the first communities in the 1980s to put a ban in place for this stuff. Fourteen different states have enacted bans on styrofoam. They don't always hold up because of course you've got these companies that are going to fight them tooth and nail, like you said, fight them in court.

• 40:18Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 40:19Speaker 04

  You've also got city governments that aren't necessarily going to enforce stuff too, right?

• 40:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they tend to be very shy about getting sued, especially when their budgets are kind of tight, right?

• 40:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:29Josh Clark?

  So if you're a big bad plastic company, apparently Dart Container is one of the the more aggressive players in this in lobbying for styrofoam to stick around. All you have to do is show up and be like, you know, we would hate to sue you guys into bankruptcy. This seems like a really nice town. And the city's going to be like, I don't even remember the styrofoam ban you're talking about.

• 40:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, or we'd hate to close down these warehouses that employ people in your state.

• 40:55Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 40:55Speaker 04

  Which is what they did in Maryland. They Maryland banned the foam and the Dart Container Company shut down two warehouses there. Employed close to a hundred workers. And that is how they play that game.

• 41:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they did it in California too in 2024. They put 175 of their workers out of work. And they always say, well, it's because of this ban. What I understand, these bans don't affect like warehousing or transportation of this stuff within the state or outside of the state. It just seems like it's a vindictive move.

• 41:29Speaker 04

  It probably helps our bottom line, I would imagine in some way.

• 41:32Josh Clark?

  I guess. I don't know. But from what I from what I understand, the aggressive lobbying that they engage in it, I don't know. It seems like. I mean, they really want styrofoam to stick around and they're fighting a tougher and tougher battle each year now.

• 41:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think what I meant was I bet they're not financially hurting their company by shuttering these warehouses.

• 41:53Josh Clark?

  No, I'm sure not. I'm sure not. I'm sure even if they do, it's negligible, you know, to punish a state into submission.

• 42:01Speaker 04

  Uh, there's also pressure campaigns, you know, McDonald's was one of the early ones in the 1980s and I guess if they quit in the 90s, it was kind of fully in the 80s when people like human beings would, you know, protest or just sort of raise a ruckus over this stuff. And they got together and there were a few tries at like, hey, um, you shouldn't worry about it too much because we do it this way. We only use this much. Uh, they really want to hang on to them. But finally, like you mentioned in 1990, they said, all right, we'll use paper. Um, and you know, you should be housing that cheeseburger the second it gets into your car anyway, right?

• 42:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, pretty much. I mean, just tell them to put it in your hands without even a paper wrapper.

• 42:47Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, I guess if you're, if you've got to get it and you can't eat it in your car and have to carry it somewhere, it's not going to be as hot, but um, I don't know. Uh, house, I mean, housing fast food in the car is a rich tradition that needs to be upheld.

• 43:00Josh Clark?

  For sure. Ever since there were cars and ever since there were fast food.

• 43:04Speaker 04

  Yeah. How else are you going to find, uh, you know, three-year-old french fries under your car seat when you vacuum it? They look exactly the same as they did the day they got down there.

• 43:12Josh Clark?

  They don't taste quite the same, but they do look like it, don't they?

• 43:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:15Josh Clark?

  So, um, a lot of people say, okay, well, we got all this polystyrene and it does provide a lot of, uh, benefits, even though it seems like the health and environmental benefits are kind of racking up against it. Um, maybe there's something we can do to recycle it instead. And, uh, kind of at the outset, you were pointing out just how hard it is to recycle this stuff. And one reason why it's so hard is because these are big, oftentimes bulky items, especially when you put a bunch of stuff. I mean, you can attest if Emily's collecting this stuff.

• 43:46Speaker 04

  It's a nightmare.

• 43:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it, it takes up a lot of space, even though it's all light. You could lift all of it with one hand, but it takes up a lot of space, right? So if you have a truck that is spending a bunch of money on gas to haul recyclables to a recycling center and then they get paid for that load in return. That styrofoam, I mean, they get paid by the pound. So that styrofoam takes up a whole truck, but it does not add up to a lot of money. So no one wants to haul this stuff. That's one problem. And that problem also belies a pro-styrofoam argument that you'll frequently run into. And that is that it has a small carbon footprint because it's so

• 44:28Josh Clark?

  light, it takes so little gas and fuel of all kinds to transport it by ocean rail truck. The problem is, is you still have that bulky thing. So you actually are probably hiring more transportation to move styrofoam stuff. Because yeah, it's light, but it takes up a lot of space in the truck. So I think that that's kind of a, um, in disingenuous argument in favor of styrofoam.

• 44:56Speaker 04

  I think you're probably right. Uh, another problem with recycling it is, uh, a lot of the foams will have pigments in them. They might be colored, or they may have flame retardants, uh, that make it not as, or completely unrecyclable, uh, along with food contamination. Uh, and then, like I mentioned at the beginning, just the, the cost of this, it's, it's pretty cheap to make. So there's not a lot of incentives for company to try and, uh, recycle it. Uh, there's a little more promise in upcycling it by breaking it down into its various chemical constituents, some of which have some pretty high value. But as far as recycling, it just doesn't make a lot of cost effective sense for a company or a recycling firm.

• 45:35Josh Clark?

  Right. I was reading a J. Store Daily article on this and they, they profiled a, um, a company in Oregon called Agilix. And they up, uh, upcycle styrofoam into, um, petroleum. Again, they turn it back into, to crude oil, which can in turn be used for like jet fuel and other like really high quality fuels. But that, they're definitely not, they're in the minority as far as recycling companies go.

• 46:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure. Uh, another thing, if you're, you know, into- Helping the environment and recycling and stuff like that. Don't be fooled just because you see the little chasing arrows recycling symbol because that is on so many things. You have to look at the number and then know what that number means. And you can look all that stuff up, but ones and twos are generally, although not entirely consistently recycled, they have the best chance at being recycled. But something with the number six on it, it's probably not being recycled.

• 46:35Josh Clark?

  No, that's polystyrene's number. And it like, I mean, for all the reasons we just said, it like you said, it's probably not being recycled. And apparently some environmentalists say that whole chasing arrows application for the plastics was basically made up by plastic companies to make you feel like,

• 46:54Speaker 04

  Right.

• 46:54Josh Clark?

  Oh, okay, this thing can be recycled. I don't have to feel bad about using it for two minutes and then throwing it away.

• 47:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:02Josh Clark?

  So there are, like I said, up until very recently, styrofoam was considered to be non-biodegradable. And there are not many things, including plastics, that are not biodegradable, right? They're starting to find that there are some microbes out there that have an ability to break it down. Apparently they're found in the guts of meal worms, wax worms,

• 47:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:25Josh Clark?

  Some kinds of insect larvae. And that these things will feed on styrofoam and they will break it down so thoroughly that you could actually eat these worms afterwards. It's just metabolized into harmless stuff. And even the solid waste they excrete, just keep it in the soil and eat food grown from the soil. The problem is, is this is a really new kind of revelation as far as I know.

• 47:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:50Josh Clark?

  And it takes a lot of those things to break down styrofoam. And we're making way more styrofoam than these worms can possibly handle.

• 47:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure. The size of that worm farm would be tremendously large. But you did find, I mean, boy, you texted me yesterday. That something can actually melt Styrofoam. I'm gonna let you say what it is, but my question, my friend, is does that, is there an application for that, or is that just a factoid?

• 48:17Josh Clark?

  This is something you can do, like if you, I hate packing peanuts. And so I've done this before with them, but it's, it's a slog. So probably people aren't gonna actually do it. But any organic solvent, and in particular acetone, that's the one I've always used, can dissolve Styrofoam into basically nothing. You can take an entire beanbag chair worth of pellets and melt it all down into nothingness in a cup of acetone. It's really neat to see.

• 48:44Speaker 04

  And oh, just like very slowly adding it in?

• 48:48Josh Clark?

  Yes. Yeah, yeah, little by little, but it, it doesn't take very long for it to break down. It's not like instantly dissolving, but it's not, you know, days or anything like that either.

• 48:58Speaker 04

  And doesn't that create probably some awful thing? I mean, you don't wanna chase that down out of the solo cup, right?

• 49:02Josh Clark?

  No, I still have that mason jar of acetone with Styrofoam in it because I have no idea what to do with it now.

• 49:09Speaker 04

  I think you just bury it in the backyard and forget about it.

• 49:12Josh Clark?

  I'll just drop it off at a number six recycling center.

• 49:15Speaker 04

  Oh, great.

• 49:17Josh Clark?

  You got anything else about Styrofoam?

• 49:19Speaker 04

  I got nothing else. Try, try and avoid it if you can.

• 49:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 49:22Speaker 04

  You know?

• 49:23Josh Clark?

  Yep. Since Chuck told you to avoid Styrofoam, obviously, everybody, that means it's time for listener mail.

• 49:32Speaker 04

  That's right, a promise to Billy Joel, and here we go. From Levi in Hangzhou, China, was giving me a little bit of a break when I, when I bagged on one of my favorite performer's songs, "We Didn't Start the Fire." He said, "Chuck, you're in good company because Billy Joel himself has called 'We Didn't Start the Fire' the worst musical thing I've ever written, calling out the simplicity of its musical structure." Someone who has only recently gotten into his music, but has personally ranked all of his 117 studio recordings. Wow, you went hard. "I tend to agree. Fun song, but it doesn't hold a candle to the rest of the catalog." As for his best and favorite, he cited Scenes from an Italian Restaurant, great song, and "You may be right."

• 50:13Josh Clark?

  I know that one.

• 50:15Speaker 04

  Great song, "Off of Glass Houses."

• 50:16Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 50:17Speaker 04

  It's two of his favorites, and if Josh hasn't heard Miami 2017, the one you mentioned, make sure he starts with the live version from the Songs in the Attic album. Miles better than the studio version, in my opinion. Keep reppin' the piano man, and that is Levi in Hangzhou, China. And he sent a link to the YouTube of the Howard Stern appearance where Billy Joel called that his worst musical outing. And he was like, "The lyrics are fine." He said, "I don't hate the song, but he just said musically, it's just very simplistic and not my best work."

• 50:49Josh Clark?

  I mean, I think everybody can basically agree that.

• 50:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, but Mr. Joel, we wish you good health and recovery. You got a lot of fans thinking about you and your family right now.

• 50:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's great, Chuck. I think that this Billy Joel saga should just continue. Every third, fourth, fifth listener mail should be about Billy Joel, I think.

• 51:09Speaker 04

  I hope so. And you know, I didn't even mention the deep cut, so maybe we'll just surprise people here and there with those.

• 51:15Josh Clark?

  Yep, just pay 'em out slowly, man, patience.

• 51:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:18Josh Clark?

  If you want to be like Levi and you're in China or anywhere else and want to get in touch with us about Billy Joel or anything else, you can send us an email to [email protected].

• 51:32Speaker 03

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 51:48Josh Clark?

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• 52:20Speaker 02

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• 52:43Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.