New AmSty Innovations Help Customers Reach Sustainability Goals

"Our customers asked us to help reduce their environmental impact and we couldn't be more excited to provide them with the innovations to get there," said Jon Timbers, director of innovation and sustainability for AmSty, a leading integrated producer of polystyrene and styrene monomer.

"The first principle in the waste hierarchy is to reduce waste generation in the first place. Polystyrene with its high stiffness-to-weight ratio is uniquely suited to this first principle. Capitalizing on this, we have invested in new high efficiency polymerization technologies to help customers do more with less," said Timbers.

From these efforts, AmSty has commercialized two new PolyRenew® products that result in a reduction in manufacturing energy consumption, lower part weight and a smaller environmental footprint compared to standard resin grades.

PolyRenew® 5102 HE and its Latin American counterpart PolyRenew® 5203 HE, are high efficiency molding grades of polystyrene that combine a unique combination of higher temperature performance and higher flex strength. Both extrusion and injection molding customers will realize conversion efficiency improvements from this innovation, along with strength improvements and potentially reduced material usage.

"Our high efficiency resins allow everyday items like carryout food containers, meat trays and school lunch trays to use 10 to 15 percent less material than before while preserving the same performance as previous products," said Dave Thompson, AmSty senior technical service and development leader.

In addition, AmSty has introduced PolyRenew® 1120, a more sustainable polystyrene resin containing 20 percent post-consumer recycled material, designed for injection molding. This resin is appropriate for food contact, backed by an FDA NOL.

"All resins in the PolyRenew® family have been developed from the company's continued emphasis on creating products and services that make life better for people around the world," said Timbers. "As a leading producer of materials that enhance the quality of daily living, we're committed to finding new ways to use our resources more wisely, and to help our customers do the same."

From high efficiency resins and materials containing recycled content, to new circular pathways that unzip molecules and reuse them again, AmSty is on the path to its long-term goal of zero waste from polystyrene products in the environment.

Through partnership with Agilyx in its Regenyx joint venture, AmSty is pioneering a truly circular recycling process to convert discarded polystyrene back to its original form and create all-new polystyrene products. To date, Regenyx has converted more than one million pounds of waste polystyrene to new raw materials since start up in April 2019. That's equivalent to 37.5 million foam cups or 32.5 million takeout containers.

Our vision is for no polystyrene products to ever be landfilled, but rather to be captured and re-used again and again," said Timbers. "I'm confident that by scaling post-consumer collection and advanced recycling we'll get there."