Crush Recycling Solutions

We are a family owned and operated company making recycling our first priority. With over 100 years combined experience in the recycling and zero waste management field, Crush Recycling is 100% committed to helping the environment. Our focus helps to reduce waste sent to landfills while addressing our clients recycling and waste management needs in South Florida. Our complete recycling services offer a clean recyclable solution in the areas of plastic, paper, cardboard, Styrofoam, etc..

We also buy and sell several plastic grades such as (PS, PE, PP, PC, PET, PVC, LDPE, HDPE), cardboard, polystyrene (foam) and printer’s waste paper. Contact us today to find out more about our programs.

Styrofoam Recycling

The term “Styrofoam” is actually a Dow Chemical Co. trademarked form of polystyrene foam insulation.Also known as Expanded Polystrene (EPS) foam, Styrofoam is basically one form of polystyrene plastic. In turn, polystyrene plastic is usually coded as #6 plastic.Styrofoam is widely used all over the world for various purposes including packing, coffee cups, plates, food trays, fabrication of car parts etc.

Facts about its applications

Only about five percent of a foam package (ie. Styrofoam) is polystyrene. The rest is air.Styrofoam has many benefits, including insulating quality that helps keep food warm. It is also of light weight, has high durability and strength, making it an excellent packaging material.Nevertheless, polystyrene (and hence Styrofoam) is made from petroleum. And in its production process, a carcinogenic chemical known as benzene is used. Due to the presence of benzene in Styrofoam, it is inevitable that food in direct contact with the Styrofoam food packaging would be affected. This has been one of the main reasons why over 20 cities in the United States have banned the use of Styrofoam.

Moreover, Styrofoam is hardly biodegradable. In the absence of a suitable solvent, Styrofoam can last almost forever.When ingested by animals, it often blocks their digestive tracts, causes starvation, and ultimately death. As such, it is important to dispose of Styrofoam carefully.Styrofoam is often space-consuming. It is estimated that by volume, it takes as much as much as thirty percent of landfills worldwide. This situation adds on to the problem of disposing styrofoam.

Film/LDPE

Low-density polyethylene, or LDPE, is number 4-coded plastic, commonly used to manufacture shopping bags, dry cleaning bags and flexible bottles and lids. Although not as commonly recycled as number 1 polyethylene terephthalate or number 2 high-density polyethylene, LDPE recycling is gaining traction as its post-consumer uses increase.

Facts about its applications
One use is combining recycled LDPE with wood to create composite lumber suitable for light applications. All these plastics can be recycled into different products, but of the three, LDPE results in the most greenhouse gas savings when it’s recycled
Being a softer material, LDPE can be used for squeeze plastic bottles and other flexible applications like plastic film and grocery bags. LDPE is also used in the manufacturing of some flexible lids and bottles, as well as in wire and cable applications. LDPE is significantly more costly than HDPE.
LDPE plastic is also commonly recycled mostly from commercial sources like businesses that generate shrink-wrap, as well as many agricultural endeavors. Plastic shopping bags, which are made from LDPE, are frequently collected by grocery and drug stores for recycling. Includes Linear Low Density Polyethylene (LLDPE).

Plastics

The well-recognized “chasing arrows” symbol we see on plastic containers and products does not mean the product is recyclable. The little number inside the triangle tells the real story.Within each chasing arrows triangle, there is a number which ranges from one to seven. The purpose of the number is to identify the type of plastic used for the product, and not all plastics are recyclable or even reusable. There are numerous plastic-based products that cannot break down and cannot be recycled.

Understanding the seven plastic codes will make it easier to choose plastics and to know which plastics to recycle. For example, water bottles that display a three or a five cannot be recycled in most jurisdictions in the US. A three indicates that the water bottle has been made from polyvinyl chloride, a five means that it’s been made of polypropylene, two materials that are not accepted by most public recycling centers.

Paper/CardBoard Recycling

Paper recycling is the process of turning waste paper into new paper products. There are three categories of paper that can be used as feedstocks for making recycled paper: mill broke, pre-consumer waste, and post-consumer waste. Mill broke is paper trimmings and other paper scrap from the manufacture of paper, and is recycled internally in a paper mill. Pre-consumer waste is material which left the paper mill but was discarded before it was ready for consumer use. Post-consumer waste is material discarded after consumer use, such as old corrugated containers (OCC), old magazines, and newspapers.[1] Paper suitable for recycling is called “scrap paper”, often used to produce molded pulp packaging. The industrial process of removing printing ink from paperfibers of recycled paper to make deinked pulp is called deinking, an invention of the German jurist Justus Claproth.

Did you know?

• Recycling paper conserves natural resources, saves energy, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and keeps landfill space free for other types of trash that can’t be recycled.

• Recycling one ton of paper can save 17 trees, 7,000 gallons of water, 380 gallons of oil, 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space and 4,000 kilowatts of energy-enough to power the average U.S. home for six months-and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by one metric ton of carbon equivalent (MTCE).

• In 2010, 63.5 percent of the paper used in the United States was recovered for recycling, an average of 334 pounds for every man, woman and child nationwide and an 89 percent increase in the recovery rate since 1990, according to the American Forest & Paper Association.

• Approximately 80 percent of U.S. paper mills use some recovered paper fiber to produce new paper and paperboard products.

• Paper recycling does have limits. Every time paper is recycled, the fiber becomes shorter, weaker and more brittle. In general, paper can be recycled up to seven times before it must be discarded.