Gilford embarks on quest to become foam recycling hub

GILFORD — Gilford may soon be a hub of foam recycling if a proposed pilot program goes as planned. The town has been known for its recent efforts in recycling, and now hopes to add polystyrene foam to its roster of recyclable materials, hopefully raising capital for the town and saving on landfill costs. 

“If you don't recycle foam, it's going into your trash and trailers and it's taking up space,” explained Gilford’s public works director Meghan Theriault. “You would save on hauling costs if you take out this space wasting foam.” 

Polystyrene,more commonly known by the brand name Styrofoam, is used in shipping packaging, forms of insulation and  food containers like take out boxes and egg cartons. As a waste product, it takes up lots of valuable space in landfills and in transit, and it can take centuries to break down. 

Theriault, along with Cindy Heath of the plastics portion of the New Hampshire Networking Group, are pushing for a program in which foam would be collected by rotary clubs across, and potentially beyond, the region. The accumulated foam would then be taken to Gilford, where a specialized machine will recycle the polystyrene into a marketable product. 

Theriault just needs to get her hands on the machine first. Recently, the Gilford selectboard approved of Theriault’s current pilot program, which would allow for a six-month trial run with a foam densifier built by a New Jersey-based company called Foam Cycle.

“It’s a free pilot program,” Theriault said. “They’re going to give it to us for at least six months free. The unit itself is just under $80,000 to purchase. We’re very confident we can get some large grant funding. While doing the program, we are going to actively seek bigger funding, (such as) Rotary International or the foam recycling coalition. We’re just going to have to apply for several grants.” 

Since gaining approval, Theriault has just one more minor hurdle to get the pilot program up and running. 

“Right now I have to get an electrical connection to the unit that's going to cost $5,500.” 

The selectboard agreed to pay for half the amount, now Theriault is applying for grants to cover the rest with hopes of initiating the pilot program at the beginning of June.

“The pilot program, it's great to start,” said Louis Troiano, the founder of Foam Cycle. “It gives the town a good half a year to run the system, not only the town, but everyone involved. It's something I’ve never witnessed before because it's a collaborative effort.”

Troiano has a long history in the recycling business, and built his machine in response to what he calls “the Amazon effect,” when home deliveries from the retail giant became increasingly common, and residents were left with lots of foam packaging.

“I developed this because in my customer base in Jersey, I was asked the same question, ‘how do I recycle this large packaging foam?’”

The answer was lots of heat. 

“It doesn’t break down on its initial input into a landfill. Where most materials can be compacted, foam just scatters, it doesn't densify. The only way to extrude the air is via heating, not through compression, which is what landfills do,” Troiano explained. “The unit takes the foam, chops it up, heats it up and extrudes 98% air, and it extrudes the remaining plastic that's left into an ingot.”

These ingots can be sold at a profit for about $700-$800 per ton, then recycled into a wide array of products from insulation to picture frames.

Selling sorted and recycled waste is nothing new for Gilford. 

“A few years ago, in 2020, we opened a new solid waste recycling center. We went from solid stream to separate waste recycling,” Theriault said, stating that by separating various forms of waste they were able to recycle and resell them as raw materials.

“We have a baler so we can bale and sell all of our products for revenue. Last year we made 50,000 in revenue, it's offsetting the cost of not processing it as trash, it would have cost $35,000 to process as trash so net savings is about $85,000.”

However, due to the small amount of end product material, the proposed hub would need foam from beyond the town of Gilford to produce ingots. 

“To make this successful, you have to have regional reach,” Theriault added. “Gilford can’t produce nearly enough foam to sell back, so we’re hoping for a radius of 50 miles and work with rotary clubs and municipalities.”

“We've been in conversation with the rotary district governors with New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont, as well as southern Quebec,” said Cindy Heath, an organizer with the New Hampshire Network Group. “The vision is that we can create a system change in New Hampshire around recycling foam that would make it easy for the average person, businesses and institutions to recycle it.”

While Gilford gets the benefit of selling the recycled ingots, surrounding communities that participate could save on waste processing and landfill costs by off loading their foam. 

According to Heath, the idea has received warm reception. 

“It’s a bipartisan initiative, we’ve had a great response from the community level,” she said. 

This also isn’t Troiano’s first rodeo. He has machines set up in five locations across the country, and has worked with municipalities before. The device in Gilford, however, would be the first in New Hampshire.

“If we start these little fires so to speak, that’s how we get the rest of the state,” Troiano said. “I don’t have any in Massachusetts, high population states that are supposedly 'green,' little New Hampshire is gonna show them what to do.”