Those pesky packing peanuts that take off into the wind never to be seen again with ever the slightest breeze are now banned in San Francisco. Packing peanuts are the reason why we switched from our robotic automatic tarping system to our manual system when doing junk removal.
The styrofoam peanuts are difficult to handle due to their tendency to float away when we are hauling our loads down the highway. When we threw bags of them into the truck they would occasionally break free. This would force our crew to chase after them like 7th graders playing Pokemon go. Our robotic tarping system would leave tiny gaps that would allow mother nature to literally siphon packing peanuts right out of our truck. We took steps and manually tarp all our loads.
It is for this reason we hold such great disdain towards these vile but fluffy little bundles of foam.
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Starting in 2017 it will be illegal to sell any polystyrene product in San Francisco. That means not only are packing peanuts illegal but so is any other consumer product made of polystyrene.
While by volume packing peanuts do not take much landfill space compared to other waste streams it doesn’t take a special study to know that packing peanuts are an especially problematic type of packing material. We have literally seen trucks “making em fly” all over the highway unbeknownst to the driver.