Styrofoam

We bought a couple of lamps recently: a floor lamp and a table lamp. These were manufactured, of course, in China, where else? But proudly designed to U.S. specifications, and containing so far as we can surmise, no toxic ingredients.

The lamps, like so many other household appliances nowadays, come in large cardboard cartons, and are kept in place within the cartons by molded blocks of lightweight white material which help protect against breakage or damage. This material is generally called Styrofoam, but that is a brand name which has taken on a generic life of its own, like Kleenex and Band-aid. The correct term, as I was able to discover on the Internet, is polystyrene foam.

It is used for things like single-use coffee cups, life jackets, insulation, and things of that kind.

In the course of opening the cartons and assembling the lamps (yes, there was some assembly required, though the task proved not to be too arduous for your average senior citizen), bits of the Styrofoam came off and flew all over the floor, like crumbs. These tiny bits of material are very difficult to clean up. They are ultra-light, and they tend to be attracted to almost any surface in their vicinity: upholstered furniture, trouser legs, fingers, shoes. Trying to sweep them up is a hopeless task. The little beads fly every which way except into the dustpan, and the act of sweeping seems to generate a stronger static charge, making it even more of a chore to shake off.

And to make matters worse, Styrofoam is not ecologically friendly. It may not dissolve back into the earth for hundreds of years, though there now appears to be a way to use bacteria to assist the process.