When many of us see this, we tend to think "A nice hot cup of coffee", but over the years as many of us have become more environmental, we as humans have become more aware. If I were to walk into a room with a styrofoam cup, I would start getting shamed. Stop for a second and tell me, have you really changed? Will you try and change? Will you never use styrofoam again? Wait a minute, that last one was rather far-fetched cause if you think about it, that's pretty hard! In the world we live in today, it's pretty hard not to accidentally use styrofoam, and it's all because of modern consumerism. If I were to do a survey, most people would say they use services like Amazon and Ebay and TaoBao (If we were to talk globally). So think for a minute what happens when we open up our delivery? What is in that box? Is it the newest trendy fashion or is there more to it? What about all of that styrofoam? Now that I've stirred you all up, let's get into the facts.
According to UN Environment, Foamed Plastics are one of the largest single use plastics and are very harmful to the environment. Foamed Plastics or Styrofoam “is the material most widely used to produce food containers as it is rigid, lightweight, and has good insulation properties.” The commonly referred to “Styrofoam” has two types, foamed polystyrene and foamed polyurethane. To put it one way, foamed polystyrene is what the coffee cup from up above would be, it's a hard but foamy material that is used in food packaging and occasionally arts and craft. To think about foamed polyurethane, it's more of a sponge-like material.
After making you think and then discussing the facts, I hope you can begin to understand the detrimental effects of polyurethane and how it's destroying our planet. The fact that foam plastics can split apart very easily decompose into micro-plastics much faster than any other plastic is the reason we should all fear the use of "styrofoam".