It's now possible to recycle all manner of materials at home by sorting your rubbish and leaving it out for collection. Unfortunately, curbside recycling services don't pick up polystyrene. If you have a lot of polystyrene balls and you're wondering what to do with them, you have a number of options. You can either reuse them yourself, or give them to one of a limited number of specialist polystyrene recyclers before you think about sending them to landfill. As polystyrene is made from oil, you'll be helping the environment by recyling or reusing it.

  • It's now possible to recycle all manner of materials at home by sorting your rubbish and leaving it out for collection.
  • You can either reuse them yourself, or give them to one of a limited number of specialist polystyrene recyclers before you think about sending them to landfill.

Reuse polystyrene balls yourself by adding them to packages you send to people. Polystyrene packaging can be useful if you regularly sell goods on Internet auction sites. It can also come in handy at Christmas if you have gifts to send through the post.

Buy a small zip-up cushion cover and fill it with your polystyrene balls to make a bean bag.

Encourage your kids to incorporate your polystyrene balls into arts and crafts activities by painting them and sticking them on paper to make a collage.

Place an advert for your polystyrene balls in your local classified listings. List them for free. If you have enough of them, there may well be somebody that could make use of them

Navigate to the recycling pages on the websites of organisations like the BPF Expanded Polystyrene Group and Friends of The Earth Scotland to find a specialist polystyrene recycler near to you. Call the recycling centre nearest you to ask if they would be interested in accepting your balls.