Few things say f:)k the environment like a styrofoam cooler.
My biggest complaint about styrofoam coolers is that they’re absolute disasters anyway you look at them.
The styrofoam cooler is a quick party fix and that usually means you were lazy and didn’t plan ahead. Nobody ever really relies on the styrofoam cooler to be their permanent cooler because, well … a styrofoam cooler can’t be a permanent cooler. There are no old styrofoam coolers.
The styrofoam cooler is basically a one time shot deal and we know this going in. You run into 7 Eleven and grab the cooler, throw the beer and ice in it and head to wherever you’re going.
If the cooler stays together long enough to actually make it to the destination that’s a plus. If the cooler last through the event (and it probably won’t) you’ll never take it home anyway. Just throw it in the trash on the way out of the park or beach and be done with it. Why would you want to keep a styrofoam cooler when you’ve got perfectly good coolers at home?
The true quality of the cooler is another thing altogether. The chances of your cooler lasting long enough to carry your cargo to the destination is about 50%. At some point pieces of styrofoam will flake throughout your car for no apparent reason until you suddenly realize water is leaking all over your back seat from melting ice in the cooler that is escaping through that small crack in the cooler that happened when you ever so gently placed the cooler in the back seat two minutes ago.
The chances of your cooler lasting through the event are only about 10%. Styrofoam coolers usually last long enough to get one or two beers out of them and then somebody leans on it and it shatters into a million environmentally un-friendly pieces.
We usually take this pretty well. We only paid $5.00 for the cooler anyway and, afterall, we’ve had plenty of styrofoam coolers before and … wow, come to think of it, this one probably lasted longer than any of those.
Subscribe to ricky26
Ricky26, you are so right on! Twenty years ago, they were all over the place! How hilarious it is now for me to see one… ACTUALLY BEING USED!!!! I usually see the all over the highway. I guess it’s because at some point in the ride, the lazy-ass, non-planning loser looks in the back and sees leakage all over the place. Then guess what? He tosses the thing out the window… probably heads to Kmart (not Target, because they don’t sell beer), buys a real cooler, and dashes off to his eventual destination (three hours later).
Wow… we are still using styrofoam coolers from camping trips 12 years ago… seriously…
Anyway, can’t you recycle them?
Nabeel R on July 31st, 2007 at 10:44 pm | Link
How do you recycle a pile of crap like the one in the picture? It’s been blown to smithereens. Thousands of tiny styrofoam pellets are disbursed the moment some fat guy leans on the cooler or someone slightly overloads the cooler and it shatters.
I thought the issue with styrofoam is that it COULD NOT be recycled, EVER, and that long after humans perish, styrofoam lives on to carry the tale of our heritage and how we destroyed Earth and ourselves.
Not only will styrofoam tell the tale of our heritage, it will tell the story of how we couldn’t build a very good cooler.
Whoever comes after us will wonder how we could build such fantastic buildings and fly through the air with such little minds, but yet build something to keep our beer cold that lasts only 10 minutes until, as said earlier, “the fat guy leans on the cooler”. And yes, that’d be me, thank you very much.
Styrofoam coolers can be recycled if you live in an area that is cold and has feral cats. We live in Michigan and there is a pack of feral cats across the street from us and they always manage to make their way across the street to our neighborhood. I am a bunny hugger and cannot stand the thoughts of those poor babies having no protection from the cold winter months. You can take a styrofoam cooler, line it with a mylar blanket which only costs 2.00, glue the lid to the top, cut a hole in it for the cat to get into and place straw inside. This way the cats have a place to get into when the weather is cold and the mylar blanket will reflect their body heat so they can stay nice and warm. I just made one today for a feral cat that we have in our neighborhood.
connie on December 15th, 2007 at 5:44 pm | Link
And the environmental damage your doing by leaving these frail coolers out in the feral wild is untold. When these things break down and they will and these foam beads they are made of get out there how many fish are you killing, (no not by saving the cats and they eat the fish but by the foam beads getting into the water) . How many birds will eat this stuff and all the other animals. Hell you may even be creating an environment inside this cooler cat keeper when the cfc’s off gas from the foam beads it will create genetic mutations killing cats with great suffering as with most genetic maladies. Or you may create a strain of super cats which will come attack you and eat your eyes out and run a rampage of carnage throughout the world.
So I beg you don’t save the feral cats kill them before they kill us ALL!!!!
mark on December 15th, 2007 at 10:58 pm | Link
God. My stepdad has had this short, this styrofoam cooler for a billion years. His favorite. He is the only person I have ever seen re-use one. Strange.
Heather on September 22nd, 2008 at 10:20 am | Link
The mutant feral cats are coming to eat your eyes out.
mark on September 22nd, 2008 at 2:41 pm | Link
Styrofoam coolers are highly reflective and make excellent marijuana hatcheries for the first time grower.
chuck on September 28th, 2008 at 7:46 pm | Link
Hello,
My refrigerated medication comes in (Triangle marked) Recyclable styrofoam container. They di make a good outdoor cat house between a plastic tote (strofoam lines) Or Mylar (Space blanket for insulation. Befor these container are bashed read up on styrofoam. The really bad styrofoam was outlawed awhile circa 1970. Styrofoam keeps getting more green. I live in the EPA Green state of California. Get your cat and dog fixed and take in an abandonded animal during this trying time. More power to Connie and the bunny huggers at least they realize we are all in this together.
Pam on October 8th, 2008 at 8:06 pm | Link
Green-Liner worked well for us!
www.green-liner.com
323-585-0900
fully recyclable
Green shipper on November 4th, 2008 at 6:52 pm | Link
Here you will find some options for recycling your styrofoam coolers.
http://www.epspackaging.org/info.html
Cathy on April 7th, 2009 at 1:57 pm | Link
First off let me say that those coolers are not made from Styrofoam. Styrofoam is blue, comes in sheets and if used to insulate your home. There is no such thing as a Styrofoam cup..
Alex on May 20th, 2009 at 9:49 am | Link
Another good source of green alternatives to coolers:
Green shipper on June 9th, 2009 at 12:27 pm | Link
Another good source of Styrocooler alternative.
And they are recyclable.
Green shipper on June 9th, 2009 at 12:28 pm | Link
here is the link:
http://www.ipcpack.com/green-liner.html
Green shipper on June 9th, 2009 at 12:28 pm | Link
You are right about those flimsy coolers. Never buy that junk. Instead, hold onto the coolers that come with shipped groceries or medications and reuse them. Those ones are build to last and stand up to quite a lot of abuse.
Jessica Bosari on July 29th, 2009 at 9:53 am | Link
BTW, this stuff is called expanded polystyrene. not the same as styrofoam at all. Styrofoam just has a notorious (and deserved) bad reputation. polystyrene ain’t so bad and can be recycled…
Jessica Bosari on July 29th, 2009 at 9:56 am | Link
For those of you who would like to know how some companies actually are recycling styrofoam then this is for you. I used to work for an extremely talented general contractor who began building houses in 2004 out of a material nown as rastra: a cement/styrofoam mix that can be molded into a Honey-comb element that generally comes in two general sizes, (specifacations unknown) that can be set vertically side by side with rebar re-enforcement running through the “honey-combed” network interier and then have concrete poured through the top ports to cmplete a fuuly insulated and re-enforced wall that can then have a roofing frame set on the walls. suposedly the rastra can withstand the test of time of over 500 years.
apache on November 18th, 2009 at 3:37 pm | Link
if you wrap them fully in duct tape they work well.. but nowadays these foam coolers are like $15 bucks! reinforced with duct tape your upwards of $20. just buy a normal one at that point…
brianna on December 21st, 2009 at 8:32 am | Link
here ’s an idea! Why not go to your local thrift store and find a really cool vintage cooler made of aluminum or steel that has sawdust or fiberglass or better yet kapok insulation. I grew up with a steel one…maybe coleman?
How about we start using the old straw picnic baskets instead of the styro waste and plastic cups from fast food joints? Far more aesthetically pleasing, mindful, and ’stylin’ mon.’
I have one such 1940’s looking cooler that is very chic and stylish. and green and reusable.
susan on January 5th, 2010 at 12:40 am | Link
okay kids, you use a styrofoam cooler so when you get too f’d up you can just leave it behind without a real loss. My coolers never break, as long as no one kicks them or anything like that. Lastly f*** the env
Jack on February 3rd, 2010 at 1:29 pm | Link
Great article. With Memorial Day Weekend just ended and the beaches and parks are littered with cooler after cooler. The more people educate themselves on styrofoam polltution hopefully, we can have more people pick up after themselves.
Instead of buying Styrofoam, Buy the Recycooler Recyclable Cooler. It replaces stryrofoam and its biodegradeable.
Check it out.. www.recycooler. com or contact me at 858.336.9899 for more information.. This a great product that replaces what you are complaining about.!
www.magicpackage.com for more information and my personal blog
David Fresquez on June 13th, 2010 at 9:27 pm | Link
I have found a 1x good use for the cooler. I am going to pregame at a concert at Jones Beach for which I am not driving (I am cabbing). So I intend to bring the cooler, drink from it, then dispose of it before entering the ampitheater….otherwise I would never have used this kind of cooler lol.
Kelly on July 20th, 2010 at 8:20 am | Link
We rednecks i Texas LOVE Styrofoam Coolers. I still got 5 with Coors, Bud and Old Milwaukee logos on them…these darn things are the best…and I banged my sister last night!
YEEEHAW!
Big Dog in Texas on October 3rd, 2010 at 8:26 am | Link
It is very interesting to see how many people are sucked in to the common syndrome of believing everything they hear and not questioning things for themselves, and how many people actually try to find the facts. I work for a polystyrene molding company, and we manufacture many Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) coolers every year. First off EPS poses no harmful affects to the environment. NONE. Secondly, EPS is 100% recyclable. It can be broken down an remanufactured into new EPS product or densified and remanufactured into other plastic products. Thirdly, the thin wall coolers found in most convenience stores (not what I manufacture) are not made to withstand the types of abuse most try to utilize them for. So use your heads, dispose of things properly, and recycle what you can!! For recycling information go to www.epspackaging.org Thanks
Beck on January 6th, 2011 at 9:26 am | Link
You,like so many others are wrong. You do realize that they are now building houses out of styrofoam. Never a better insulator and 100,that’s right 100%recycyclable, If the product is molded right then I personally know people including me that have had a foam cooler for twenty years. You probably are looking at the cheap Lifoam brand. I have a Loboy brand cooler that is great.
Diane on February 28th, 2011 at 10:32 am | Link
Nothing so disappointing as seeing foam coolers strewn along the beach, broken and floating in waterways, or cast away in the woods (or anywhere in nature). It’s absolutely unnecessary. One of the things we emphasize in our marketing is the undeniable fact that expanded polystyrene (eps) foam coolers are completely recyclable. We maintain a 100% recycle program at our facility on the Florida Panhandle plus we voluntarily recycle the eps foam packaging and coolers from the surrounding military bases. One of the reasons foam coolers have such a bad reputation when it comes to litter is because people have been conditioned to think in terms of ‘cheapness’ - hence, many don’t care about the product or what they do with it, throwing away money on the flimsy, truly cheap foam coolers often found at major retail stores. Retail chain buyers know that people expect the cheapest throwaways and tend to take orders on the worst product rather than thinking long term in order to help change customer perception by ordering a higher quality foam cooler for a slightly higher price that would increase customer satisfaction and lower instances of litter in the environment. When people perceive no value, they treat things with no value. So, the best solution to prevent foam coolers from being cast away is to focus on quality. LoBoy Foam Coolers are sought after by people who prefer spending their money on something they can keep and reuse. We know many people who have had our foam coolers in their household for more than ten years, and we take pride in it. If you really want to make a difference when it comes to the environmental impact of foam coolers, demand a high quality product that resists breakage and leakage - one that you can reuse for many years for numerous purposes. When you want to get rid of a foam cooler, have it recycled. And finally, if you see somebody else getting ready to litter with a foam cooler, let them know there’s a better way.
LoBoy Foam Coolers on March 14th, 2012 at 6:32 am | Link
Get rid of the disastrous Styrofoam (and all of its cousins) completely, find an alternative that you can recycle anywhere - not just at specialty recycling places, and still keep all your contents cold. Our Earth will thank you one day.
Recyclable Cooler on June 13th, 2012 at 11:23 am | Link
While I hate waste probably as much as about anyone (I don’t buy disposables at all, and I bring my own real plates to events where there will be paper plates), I have to debunk one myth: that there are no vintage styrofoam coolers. Here is one: https://www.etsy.com/listing/83385538/
Laura's Last Ditch--Vintage Kitchenwares on August 27th, 2012 at 6:09 pm | Link
There are in fact “old styrofoam coolers”— My father still has an old Falstaff Beer cooler that looks almost like new. And we’ve used it a lot! It is the newer generations wastefulness and sense of entitlement that is causing waste and liter.
Dr. Holden Caulfield on May 15th, 2013 at 1:41 pm | Link