Why can't scientists create anything to replace toxic polystyrene? (2024)

Ray McIntyre clearly had no idea of the toxic plague he was unleashing on the world when he accidentally invented 'expanded polystyrene' more than 80 years ago.

In 1941, the industrial scientist was busily mixing substances to create new electrical insulators when instead he ended up creating an entirely new form of plastic that rapidly expanded to 40 times its original size.

Its practical uses grew just as quickly.

This bizarrely light, brittle product has become ubiquitous as packaging filler, as well as the go-to material for making food trays, buoyancy aids, coffee cups and cooler boxes.

Expanded polystyrene has taken over our world.

If a single year's global production — 15.4 million tonnes — were formed into one-tonne blocks, these would each measure about three metres square. Lined up, they would easily stretch around the equator.

But as everyone who has ever unboxed a new consumer durable will know, this disarmingly useful stuff is the absolute devil to get rid of.

Try to break it down and it abruptly snaps into a snowstorm of minute plastic crumbs that scatter into every inaccessible nook and corner.

If you refurbish your kitchen or bathroom, your life will sink beneath giant sheets of the stuff. The amount that comes wrapped around cabinets, white goods and electricals is astonishing.

The curse of expanded polystyrene is that it's just so useful.

Because it comprises about 95 per cent air, expanded polystyrene is both an excellent heat insulator for building construction and an effective buoyancy aid in life vests and rafts.

And because it doesn't react with other materials and is resistant to heat, it has wide use in the food industry for meat and poultry trays and fast-food and drinks containers.

Its lightness and malleability make it a good packing material, adding cushioning but very little weight. That's why scientists calculated last year that every one of us generates an estimated 40 kg–50 kg of polystyrene waste each year.

That figure is set to grow, with forecasters at economic analyst Research Nester predicting the world market will expand from its current £15 billion annual worth to £28 billion in the next decade.

But why is this such a problem? It's because once expanded polystyrene has been used, we can't dispose of it safely — and it can take at least 500 years to break down. But in the meantime, it turns toxic.

Around 70 per cent of all the expanded polystyrene ever made is thrown into landfills after use, according to recent figures from Victoria University, Australia. Much of the rest just swirls around our land and oceans.

UK kerbside recycling programmes do not accept expanded polystyrene. It's bulky, difficult and expensive to transport. As litter, it often blows away or gets stuffed guiltily into our general waste bins.

Over the past two years, numerous studies have demonstrated how expanded polystyrene may seriously threaten our health.

Last year, pathologists at the University of Vienna warned that tiny particles of polystyrene can invade our brains only two hours after we have eaten food that has been contaminated by its packaging, or after eating meat from animals who had ingested them as pollutants in the natural world — a particular problem with fish.

Worryingly, these plastic particles have rare chemical properties that enable them to break through our brain's natural defence against infection — called the 'blood-brain barrier', the research showed.

Dr Lukas Kenner, who led the study, warned: 'In the brain, plastic particles could increase the risk of inflammation, neurological disorders or even neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's.'

Indeed this year lab studies on mice that ate microscopic polystyrene particles, in the journal Environment International, reported that the creatures became markedly anxious as a result of brain inflammation. Clinical anxiety is a known precursor to depression in humans. Other research in this area has linked consumption of nano-sized polystyrene particles with gastro-intestinal disease which may cause gut linings to leak into the bloodstream, sparking the chronic body-wide inflammation that is associated with heart disease and cancer.

And last year, in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, investigators found that ingesting microscopic pieces of polystyrene caused male lab mice to become infertile, due to inflammatory damage in their testes.

So what to do?

We might try to ban the stuff. In January, the Cornish company Beach Guardian, which organises community clean-ups of local beaches, called for a ban on polystyrene bodyboards — popular with seaside holidaymakers who want to play at surfing, even though the toys typically break after only a few hours' use. Keep Britain Tidy warns that around 16,000 costing £10 a pop are abandoned on UK beaches every year.

And more widely, last October the Government introduced a ban on expanded polystyrene cups in England as part of a general ban on single-use polystyrene items.

However, this ban has one exception: businesses can continue to supply polystyrene food and drinks containers used to transport unprocessed or unprepared food through the supply chain — for example, polystyrene boxes used by fishermen to store and transport their catches.

The Australian government also realised the difficulty of banning the stuff.

It planned to abolish its use as consumer packaging by 2023 but the initiative is now more than a year behind schedule, with even a leading charitable recycling group, the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation, saying there is 'no viable alternative'.

However, a Ukrainian emigree husband-and-wife team based in Spain, Julia Bialetska and her husband Eugene Tomilin, is developing a substitute made from mushrooms and hemp.

They say that they have already produced more than 7.2 tonnes of their packaging material, which uses strong hemp fibres 'glued' together with fungal strands.

It has already completed a successful trial with the cosmetics maker L'Oréal, and Samsung and Sony have been exploring is potential for packaging TVs.

'It is 100 per cent biodegradable. After use it can just be thrown in with the food compost and will fully decompose in just 30 days,' says Bialetska.

Meanwhile, global packaging company Mondi announced last November it's developing a foldable, compostable — corrugated-cardboard alternative.

As for the millions of tonnes of ghastly expanded polystyrene waste already polluting the world, some scientists are pinning their hopes on recruiting microscopic allies.

They have discovered how bacteria found living in the guts of beach-dwelling clam-worms and land-dwelling mealworms have now evolved to break down polystyrene waste into foods their hosts can eat.

Could such bacteria be cultured en masse to digest the white plastic waste in our landfills, as well as in our oceans and on our beaches?

The scientists have their fingers crossed. Perhaps ultimately, Mother Nature might kindly clear up after our mess.