California RECYCLES!

CA Curbside Recycling

The following California cities have included polystyrene foam in their list of accepted items for curbside recycling: Anaheim, Arrow Bear*, Big Bear*, Bloomington*, Cerritos, Commerce (Partial), Covina, Crestline*, Downey, El Segundo, Fontana*, Lake Arrowhead*, Lomita, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Manhattan Beach, Montclair*, Norwalk, Ontario*, Paramount, Pasadena, Pico Rivera, Pomona (Partial)*, Rancho Cucamonga*, Redondo Beach, Rialto*, Rim of the World*, Rolling Hills Estates, Running Springs*, San Bernardino (Partial)*, Santa Clarita, Santa Fe Springs, Torrance, Tracy, Upland*, and Yucaipa*.

*The material recovery facility servicing these cities now sorts foam for recycling and is in the process of notifying them.

Dart Drop-Off Programs

We currently have 13 foam collection centers at the following U.S. plants: Corona (CA), Horse Cave (KY), Lancaster (PA), Leola (PA), Lithonia (GA), Lodi (CA), Mason (MI), N. Aurora (IL), Plant City (FL), Quitman (MS), Randleman (NC), Tumwater (WA) and Waxahachie (TX).
For more foam recycling locations go to www.earth911.com and search for "Styrofoam".

CA Recycling Successes

The following California Schools are now recycling their foam lunch trays: Torrance USD, Manhattan Beach USD, Chula Vista USD, Westwood Elementary (Lodi) and Kohl Middle School (Stockton), Culver City USD, Monrovia USD, National City USD, and Santee USD.
Plastics Foodservice Packaging Group (PFPG) has partnered with Stockton Recycling for a public drop-off location in Stockton, CA.

The Dart Story

The Dart story begins with a small machine shop in Mason, Michigan known as Dart Manufacturing Company. Established in 1937, this modest business prospered through the manufacture of such products as plastic key cases, steel tape measures, and identifcation tags for the armed services. Subsequent experimentation with expandable polystyrene in the late 1950s led to a line of high quality insulated foam cups, and Dart Container Corporation was born.

Today, Dart manufactures products in two California facilities strategically located near major markets in Northern and Southern California.

Dart strives to produce high-quality, cost-effective products in a manner sensitive to environmental concerns while providing tremendous value to the great state of California.

California Economic Benefits

Dart employs 720 full-time employees
Dart Pays $30 million per year in payroll dollars
Dart Pays $19.9 million per year to California based vendors
Dart Pays $2.6 million per year in state and local taxes

Environmental Stewardship

Dart’s ongoing drive for efficiency has reaped an extraordinary harvest in reductions of our carbon footprint. From the lighting fixtures in our offices to the technologies on our factory floors, each element of our business is scrutinized for ways to further reduce energy consumption, air emissions, and solid wastes.

Examples of DART’S Environmental STEWARDSHIP

Energy conservation measures include recovering heat from our cup-making process to warm our buildings.
Electrical usage has been substantially reduced through the use of programmable controls and lower wattage lighting.
Dart’s largest factory uses landfill gas to run the boilers for its foam cup production and the ovens for its oriented polystyrene operations, resulting in a net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Dart has led its industry in emissions reduction and source reduction efforts, including the reduction of pentane emissions, the expansion agent for foam cups. Dart recaptures pentane for use in our production processes.
By choosing inks curable by ultraviolet light, Dart avoids the solvent emissions associated with typical solvent-based printing inks.
The amount of material used to produce many Dart products has been reduced without altering product performance.
The amount of materials used in the packaging of our products, both corrugated cartons and plastic films, has been reduced.

Dart RECYCLES!

Dart currently operates polystyrene foam drop-off locations at our production plants for anyone who wishes to recycle foam products. In addition, we have recycling centers at our production facilities in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Ontario, Canada, capable of reprocessing 12 million pounds of foam products annually. Dart sells its recycled polystyrene to manufacturers who reprocess it into useful products. Recycled polystyrene is used in the making of picture frames, plastic lumber, egg cartons, building insulation, toys, and office desk products.

Dart RECYCLING Programs

The Dart densifier can compress
8,000 eight ounce foam cups into a
cylinder 15" tall and 15" in diameter.

Dart offers the CARE (Cups Are REcyclable) Program to make recycling polystyrene foam foodservice products easier for our customers. The CARE Program helps large users of foam foodservice products separate the foam from other products, consolidate the collected material, and arrange to have it recycled. Recycled foam foodservice products can be reprocessed into building insulation, plastic lumber, and many other products.

The Dart Recycla-Pak program is an easy way for any business to recycle their foam cups. Simply purchase a specially designed Recycla-Pak corrugated collection bin and you can start recycling foam cups. The Recycla-Pak collection bin doubles as the shipping carton used to return the collected cups for recycling at a Dart or industry recycling facility. The bin will be shipped to you flat and, after a simple assembly, you are ready to begin collecting used foam cups for recycling. During use, a cardboard divider in the bin keeps the collected cups neatly stacked. A pre-printed shipping label attached to the bin allows for easy return of the cups for recycling, freight prepaid. Most paper foodservice products are coated with wax, polyethylene plastic, or other nonbiodegradable materials and are, therefore, essentially no more degradable than foam.

Foam Facts

Most paper foodservice products are coated with wax, polyethylene plastic, or other nonbiodegradable materials and are, therefore, essentially no more degradable than foam.
The manufacture of average-weight polystyrene foam hot beverage cups requires less energy than the manufacture of comparable plastic coated paperboard hot cups with cardboard sleeves. The manufacturing of polystyrene foam cold beverage cups requires less energy than the manufacture of comparable wax-coated paperboard cold cups.
Plastic-coated paperboard cups don’t insulate as efficiently as foam cups. Plastic-coated paper cup users frequently use two cups together for hot beverages to protect their hands, thereby doubling the environmental impact of choosing paper.¹
The manufacture of Dart polystyrene foam products does not deplete the ozone layer.
Polystyrene foam can be recycled as part of an integrated solid waste management strategy. Paper foodservice disposables, on the other hand, are rarely recycled.

1 Franklin Associates, Ltd., Final Peer-Reviewed Report: Life Cycle Inventory of Polystyrene Foam, Bleached Paperboard, and Corrugated Paperboard Foodservice Products (Prepared for The Polystyrene Packaging Council, March 2006), Table 2-2, p. 2-7.