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Michael Miner sees a construction opportunity in post-consumer expanded polystyrene foam, a petroleum-based material that in the Portland-metro area would almost certainly end up in a landfill. He鈥檚 the CEO of , a Portland-based business that鈥檚 gearing up to mass-produce a building material consisting of a mix of 80 percent ground-up post-consumer polystyrene and 15 percent cement.

The insulated concrete forms can produce energy-efficient residential and commercial buildings of up to seven stories that are more fire-resistant and seismically sound than typical wood-frame construction, he said. An added environmental benefit is that BluBloc would reuse polystyrene packaging foam and other forms of the lightweight plastic material that would otherwise be thrown away, Miner said.

鈥淲e鈥檒l take anything the city of Portland can produce and make block out of it,鈥� he said.

Polystyrene, more commonly known as Styrofoam, can be recycled, but currently no recyclers in the Portland-metro collect the material. Last month, Far West Recycling Inc., a Portland-based company that had been collecting polystyrene stopped accepting it.

Because polystyrene foam is pumped with air, it takes up a lot of space; that makes it a tricky material for recyclers to collect, sort and store. Recycling polystyrene typically requires extra storage space and special equipment to remove the air before transport. But a recycling facility would have to receive a large amount of the foam to justify the cost of this equipment and most cities, including Portland, do not collect polystyrene curbside.

鈥淣obody has an incentive to recycle it,鈥� BluBloc Vice President Jim McAllister said.

Miner said he estimates that more than 1,200 truckloads of polystyrene are hauled to Portland-area landfills each year. An average home constructed using BluBloc would use 2,500 pounds of the material, he said.

The company is seeking warehouse space in the Portland-metro area to house manufacturing equipment with hopes of starting to mass-produce BluBloc by the beginning of next year, Miner said. He and McAllister are reaching out to companies that discard large amounts of polystyrene as potential sources for the material. They have also confirmed with Portland Bureau of Development Services staffers that a BluBloc project would meet city building code.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e all aware of our block,鈥� Miner said. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 have any problems with the city of Portland in getting our block approved.鈥�

The process of combining polystyrene and cement into building blocks to take advantage of the foam鈥檚 insulating properties was first developed in Austria in the 1970s. Another Oregon company, Winchester-based APEX Block, produces building blocks using recycled polystyrene and cement. Miner claims BluBloc is lighter, stronger and contains a more even mix of polystyrene and cement than competitors like APEX.

BluBloc has attracted the attention of some Portland architects who鈥檝e used similar products. Portland architect Hilary Mackenzie, principal of Sundeleaf Mackenzie Architecture, said she has used APEX Block and two other building materials similar to BluBloc called RASTRA and Perform Wall. Among the advantages of these products is their general resistance to rot, mold and fire, she said. High seismic strength is another selling point; homes built with polystyrene and cement blocks often are the only ones left standing in neighborhoods hit by a wildfire or hurricane, Mackenzie said.

A Portland multifamily project she designed called the Graham Street Lofts was built using Perform Wall. The complex is located off of busy Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, but the insulating polystyrene and cement walls block out most of the traffic noise in the apartments, she said.

Some architects are intimidated that it鈥檚 different, Mackenzie said, but the building material appeals to her creativity.

鈥淚 like that you can sculpt it,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 like that you can stack it. It鈥檚 like building with blocks. There鈥檚 something very appealing to me about that.鈥�

Portland architect Manfred Grabski said he would consider using BluBloc on a future project. He said he especially likes that the product reuses polystyrene that would otherwise be thrown away.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 a great advantage,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou avoid landfills.鈥�

Polystyrene and cement construction is a common practice in Europe, where Grabski used to practice architecture. It lets buildings stay cool in the summer and warm in winter, he said.

鈥淚t鈥檚 also very easy to build for fast-track construction,鈥� he said.

Eric Bell, executive director of home performance with Portland-based Westside Drywall & Insulation, said his company has tested the efficiency of houses built using products similar to BluBloc and the structures tend to use less energy than wood-frame construction because they鈥檙e more airtight.

BluBloc鈥檚 use of post-consumer polystyrene could also be an advantage to projects being targeted for a green building certification, such as Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design, Bell said.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 an amazing benefit of BluBloc is recycling,鈥� he said. 鈥淧olystyrene is one of the biggest problems we have as far as recycling 鈥� If you talk to recycling companies, they say they it鈥檚 a struggle. They don鈥檛 like dealing with it.鈥�

Reusing polystyrene is certainly preferable to throwing it away, said Jordan Palmeri, a science and policy analyst in the green building program for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. But he cautioned that combining it with cement doesn鈥檛 make it an entirely sustainable building material. This is because it takes a lot of energy and more carbon emissions to produce cement versus lumber used for wood construction, he said.

鈥淐ement has pretty high environmental impacts,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou have to throw it in a furnace. It doesn鈥檛 seem like it鈥檚 an end-all solution.鈥�

Because BluBloc is made mostly from recycled polystyrene, it is more green than concrete-only construction, which would require even more energy to produce, Palmeri said. It鈥檚 also better than an insulated concrete form that uses new polystyrene.

鈥淩ecycling the polystyrene does significantly cut down on the (environmental) impact,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f this is replacing typical concrete construction, there could be a lot of benefits.鈥�