When you drop off a package at your local shipping store, you're doing a bit of recycling.

That's because the "peanut hopper" that fills your box up with cushiony polystyrene plastic peanuts uses materials from other people's packages, extending the life of these plastic products that can't easily be recycled.

"We about take everything, but definitely we take those," said Jimmy Kiser, owner and manager of The Shipping Depot in Gainesville. "Packaging peanuts are the same way new as when they're shipped to you. We typically try to reuse those and put them in our peanut hopper."

The store will also cut up blocks of polystyrene plastic, like the material used to cushion electronics, and use that in the peanut hopper, too.

It's all part of how some Hall County businesses are trying to reuse materials that can't be recycled the traditional way, by sending them off to be reformed into a new product.

Unlike paper or glass, which are bundled and sold to recyclers that turn them into new paper and glass products, polystyrene plastic is just that - and used for its one intended purpose, more or less.

"The problem with polystyrene foam is it's lightweight and bulky," said Rick Foote, natural resources coordinator for Hall County. "We bale cardboard and you can actually overload a trailer because it's so heavy. We get 30,000 pounds on a trailer of soda-bottle plastic.

"But a trailer of polystyrene foam ..."

Foote said he couldn't think of a way it would be economically feasible to transport the lightweight stuff.

So, it finds its way into other uses, like a product made by EEE ZZZ Lay that replaces gravel in septic tank systems.

Rather than filling the septic system with porous gravel — which is dense and requires heavy equipment to install — Foote said the system uses chunks of polystyrene plastic.

Because the plastic won't break down under the ground, it will stand up to the septic system's use. The Lula company Shape Formation, which specializes in creating large forms out of polystyrene plastic, used to send their plastic to EEE ZZZ Lay for reuse in the systems.

"It takes the place of gravel in a septic or drainage system, so it's just like having gravel to filter the water through," said Jim Reid, president of Shape Formation. Although recently EEE ZZZ Lay started using their own material rather than using reused plastic from others, so now Shape Formation focuses on reusing polystyrene in packing materials.

"We still make those cubes and sell them for packaging material — a peanut equivalent," he said. "So we actually will take clean and dry Styrofoam from inserts ... and cut it up into cubes and sell it as packaging material."

Reid said the company does prefer polystyrene peanuts, though.

"We'll run them through a process and rebag them," he said. "But we do take clean and dry Styrofoam and slice it up and cube it."

Shape Formation is one of several area companies that will accept polystyrene plastic from consumers, finding a new home for it in a new shipping box. More companies can be found on the Web site for Hall County's recycling program.

But if you're still on the fence about using polystyrene peanuts in your packing — which, Reid pointed out don't do any damage to a landfill other than take up space — you can turn to another cushion alternative: Paper.

"A lot of folks have paper shredders at home," he said. "You can use the paper as packing material, and then when it gets to its destination they can recycle it; the shredding does not have any detrimental impact in recyclability of it.

"Oftentimes, we'll just crumple up newspaper and use that."