We are a collective of polystyrene manufacturers who are dedicated to reducing the amount of polystyrene waste sent to landfill to ZERO.
Expanded polystyrene (EPS) is widely used in modern society due to its many benefits, but in recent times it has attracted controversy, in part because it is misunderstood. It is used in building & construction, packaging and other applications like bicycle helmets.
EPS, like all other manufactured products, has some impact on the environment, but during its lifetime as an insulation product EPS saves considerably more energy than is consumed during its production and use. And it’s not widely known that all non-contaminated EPS can be recycled.
Since the 1950s, expanded polystyrene has been well regarded as a mainstream insulation material. EPS is a material of choice for green building design, offering environmental advantages that can maximise energy efficiency and provide improved indoor environmental quality. EPS provides superior, constant insulation performance over its entire service life of more than 50 years for enhanced durability.
EPS packaging is lightweight and highly recyclable when kept clean. StyroCycle exists to make that easy — improving collection, reducing litter risk, and growing the amount of EPS packaging recovered and recycled in Australia.
In FY25, polystyrene packaging made up 2.9% of all litter items counted — a clear opportunity for recovery and prevention through better collection systems.
Packaging represents 59.5% of all reported litter — meaning the biggest wins come from simple, accessible packaging recovery pathways (like dedicated EPS drop-off and recycling).
Australians use 146kg of packaging per person each year — strengthening recovery systems helps keep valuable materials like EPS packaging in the recycling loop.
Source: Clean Up Australia Litter Report 2025
Australia still sends a large volume of packaging to landfill — which means lost materials, missed economic value, and avoidable emissions.
The Australian Government notes that if all packaging that went to landfill in 2020–21 had been recycled, greenhouse gas emissions could have been reduced by about 2 million tonnes (equivalent to removing around 740,000 cars from the road each year).
That’s why practical recovery pathways matter. When packaging materials are kept clean and collected properly — including EPS protective packaging — they can be recycled and returned to productive use instead of becoming landfill or litter.
StyroCycle’s focus is simple: keep EPS protective packaging out of landfill and the environment by making recycling easy and accessible.
StyroCycle now supports a national network of almost 14 drop-off locations — and the map also highlights independent EPS recyclers using a range of processing technologies, because the solution is bigger than one program.
Australia is in one of the strongest positions it has ever been in to recycle EPS packaging: capability exists, and collection options are growing. What’s still needed is greater investment to scale the system — especially where it counts most. Our goals are to:
