Photo Provided Jefferson-Belmont County Green Team unveils its new foam recycling program with its two mascots.

MARTINS FERRY — The Jefferson-Belmont Regional Solid Waste Authority is launching the first foam recycling program in the state of Ohio.

JB Green Team Executive Director Anita Petrella said she believes this is the first program of its kind in the state due to Styrofoam being a difficult material to recycle.

According to Business Insiders, approximately 2.3 million tons of expanded polystyrene ends up in landfills every year worldwide. Styrofoam is a brand name for such foam.

These foams are made from fossil fuels, according to Beyond Plastics, and they do not biodegrade over time. Instead, they break down into smaller pieces, eventually becoming microplastics. They can be ingested by animals and have toxic effects. It may contains chemical additives and has been linked to health impacts in humans.

In an effort to cut down on the amount of such foam in the environment, the new program offers foam recycling at five of JB Green Team’s recycling locations in Belmont County and five of its Jefferson County sites.

“We put five bins out in community sites, and this is really booming. It’s booming in both counties. We emptied everything out yesterday, and they’re full again today,” Petrella said.

She noted that the five locations in Jefferson County are at Fort Steuben Mall, Tiltonsville’s recycling dropoff location, Toronto’s dropoff location, Adena’s dropoff site and Bergholz’s dropoff location.

The Belmont County locations are at old fairgrounds and near Ohio 331 in St. Clairsville, Martins Ferry City Garage, Shadyside’s dropoff location and Barnesville’s Harmony Road dropoff location.

According to JB Green Team’s website, its mission is to eliminate the myths and stigmas surrounding foam recycling by establishing a scalable, effective model that works across the country.

“Since its start in New Jersey in 2016, over 35 Foam Cycle systems now operate in 12 states, giving more than 11 million residents access to foam recycling where it wasn’t available before. JB Green Team is excited to bring this impactful solution to our region,” the website states.

Petrella said that all sizes of coolers, meat and produce trays, egg cartons, packing blocks used around furniture, appliances or electronics, foam plates, cups and food clam shells or trays can all be placed in the foam recycling bins.

Items that cannot be placed in the foam recycling bins include pipe insulation, bubble wrap or thin foam wrap, items without a number 6 recycle symbol, packing peanuts, soft or squishy foam, dirty foam food containers, egg crate foam layer, craft foam and foam board insulation.

She added that all items brought for foam recycling must be rinsed and clean with no food particles or liquids in or on them.

“It’s a difficult situation because you can’t mix it in with other kinds of recycling. And it has to be clean and separate from everything else,” said Belmont County Commissioner Jerry Echemann, who also is a member of the JB Green Team board. “That’s why you have the separate bins. And it’s not heavy but it’s bulky, and it’s not the kind of thing that most solid waste authorities really want to do because it’s challenging. And for a lot of them, it wouldn’t be because they just don’t want to do it but may not have the money to do it.”

Once the bin is full, Petrella said it goes through a process that sucks all of the air out of it and compacts the foam into an ingot, which is a mass cast into a convenient shape for storage or transportation to be later processed.

Once turned into an ingot, JB Green Team then sells the condensed foam to several different companies that make frames for cruise ships, frames for pictures or insulation for walls.

Petrella added that the JB Green Team board purchased the machines and bins, adding that the board gave her a budget of $150,000. The machine that turns the foam into ingots cost $84,000, and each bin where residents place the styrofoam in was $1,000.

Echemann said the program has been going so well that other counties in both Ohio and West Virginia have reached out to JB Green Team in hopes to collaborate in the initiative with it.

“It’s generating so much interest now that we’re getting these calls from outside the area, meaning West Virginia, to say, ‘Hey, can we come over there and get in on it somehow?'” he said. “But I think that’s going to be a little bit difficult to try to do and think that we’re more or less going to have to say no.”