The Styrofoam Difference 🥤
What makes a foam coffee cup different from Styrofoam? It’s not just a difference in branding.
Hey all! Here’s another edition of Lesser Tedium, a version of Tedium that is pedantic about types of foam that are difficult to recycle. Want more content like this? Subscribe over this way.
I know that can be hard for people to understand sometimes, but if you’re buying food in a puffy white container, it’s not styrofoam.
Styrofoam is a whole different thing, and Dow Chemical would appreciate it if you understood the difference.
The fact is, foam food containers, built from expanded polystyrene, are built to be lightweight, mostly made of air. They are made into specific shapes, like cups or packaging, through a molding process in which balls of polymer are expanded with gas.
This is good for food containers, as it allows them to be both lightweight and have plenty of insulation.
Less in need of being lightweight, but still in need of the insulation benefits, is Styrofoam, which uses an extrusion process rather than an expansion process. The difference is in how the air is controlled—there’s less of it, and in general, there’s less molding going on. The resulting material, distributed in thick slabs similar to drywall, is thicker, designed to last longer and stand up to water damage. That’s why it’s usually seen as a building material, not a way to keep your cup of coffee manageable.
(If you need a more detailed explanation of these differences, check out the Owens Corning video above. While it can’t be called Styrofoam because Dow owns that name, that’s what Owens is pitching.)
Each has their use cases, to be clear. Expanded polystyrene is great for keeping hot foods hot after delivery. If there’s a leak in your home somewhere, Styrofoam can withstand it.
(Amusingly, though, each were used for crafting soon after their respective inventions.)
The problem is, of course, that neither of these materials are particularly recyclable, though the Dart Container Corporation, which makes most of our expanded polystyrene, has spent years trying to change that narrative, in vain.
But now, at least, you can use this superpower I’ve given you to correct everyone around you.
» Wanna learn more? Check out our piece on expanded and extruded polystyrene, which highlights how Omaha Steaks couldn’t exist without it.