Plastics manufacturer presented with 2016 Excellence in EPS Recycling Award

Pacific Allied Products, a major plastics manufacturer located in Oahu, Hawaii, has been presented with the EPS Industry Alliance's 2016 Excellence in EPS Recycling Award. The award, created in 2013, is given to a company or organization that has proven their commitment to expanded polystyrene (EPS) recycling.

Pacific Allied Products is the only EPS manufacturer in the State of Hawaii, producing roofing and construction products as well as shape molded insulated containers for the aquaculture and recreational industries. Through their program, the Hawaiian Recycling Initiative, Pacific Allied Products has greatly increased the recycling production of EPS in their state over the past decade, now totaling 775,000 pounds of foam per year, currently gathered from 54 different companies. They have accomplished this by investing in an EPS densifier machine, while also reusing the EPS resin bead sacks to ship the then densified foam out of the state, where it is repurposed to make picture frames and other plastics products. For their efforts, Pacific Allied has been issued a permit by the State of Hawaii to become a certified approved recycling center for EPS foam.

"Manufacturing on an island in the middle of the Pacific presents its own unique challenges and we needed to find a solution for the disposal of our foam waste that would be both cost-effective and environmentally friendly," said Pacific Allied Products President Bernie Coleman, "It's a win-win for everyone."

Other nominees for the award this year were celebrated for their contributions to the recycling community. They include the City of Airdrie in Alberta, Canada, who collected EPS by tractor trailer loads and demonstrated a method to bale the EPS for more economical transport; Buckeye Industries in Cleveland, Ohio, for providing vocational training to adults with developmental disabilities to assist in EPS recycling; the University of Wisconsin, Madison, for their program Boxable, which established a reuse and recycling system for EPS that has spread to the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign and the University of Washington in St. Louis; and Sedona Recycles in Sedona, Arizona, for diverting EPS from landfills through use of a densifier.

Representing various aspects of the recycling and sustainability communities, the judges for this year's award were Nina Goodrich, Executive Director of GreenBlue, Brenda Pulley, Vice President of Recycling for Keep America Beautiful, Lisa McTigue Pierce, Executive Editor of Packaging Digest, and Patty Moore, President and CEO of Moore Recycling Associates, Inc.

The Excellence in EPS Recycling Award recognizes the achievements of the companies and organizations that work towards advancing and improving EPS recycling through innovation and expansion.