It was an obvious question for Marilyn Lauderdale to ask herself.

“Somebody needs to do this. Why not me?”

The “this” is figuring out how to keep the untold thousands pounds of expanded polystyrene foam – better known by its trademark name, Styrofoam – out of landfills.

The answer, crush it, compress it, heat it and extrude it into roughly 40- pound ingots. And then sell it, for use in such things as picture frames and casings for computers and TVs.

That process may sound easy, and it is. The problem is getting enough styrofoam to make the whole process profitable, or at least pay the bills. And then there are those startup costs that any new enterprise faces.

But those challenges didn’t faze Lauderdale. Her months of getting her new business off the ground – Vic and Ginger’s Styrofoam Recycle – are now visible in space donated to her by her employer, IKEA, on the west side of the iconic store in south Renton.

Lauderdale has worked for IKEA for about 15 years. Her current job is to assemble furniture in the store. Of course, all that furniture comes packaged in styrofoam to keep it dent-free. She has watched for years as the styrofoam was shipped off with the garbage.

“That’s not right,” she said.

But there were few options to recycle styrofoam, which is petroleum-based. The county doesn’t accept it at its recycling stations at its landfills.

Lauderdale, always to the point, said that’s “sad,” of the lack of a “green way” to make use of the rather ubiquitous white stuff.

“Why shouldn’t I do it,” she said. “I believe God gave me this mission.”

So, Lauderdale began developing a plan for her own business. First, she approached IKEA about recycling its styrofoam inhouse. She presented a business plan, but key officials felt the store wouldn’t generate enough styrofoam to support an investment in the recycling venture

But, IKEA remained supportive of her and her business idea, offering her whatever help she needed to make her plan work, Launderdale said. The help included store warehouse space accessed from the driveway between IKEA and Alliance Packaging between Southwest 41st Street and Southwest 43rd Street in south Renton.

Lauderdale had the space; now she needed the key piece of equipment that would transform the styrofoam into the raw material that could be in different products.

Through research, she found a California company that sold the machine, in various sizes. The Macy’s store at Southcenter has one of NEPCO’s machines, so Lauderdale went over for a demonstration. She realized she would need a bigger machine.

A deal was struck for the $45,000 machine. Today, Lauderdale’s total investment is about $87,000, which includes a brightly colored truck her parttime employee, Tino Arellano, uses to pick up styrofoam from businesses throughout the region.

That truck is a key part of Lauderdale’s plan to collect enough styrofoam to keep her new recycling machine working at a clip that will generate enough raw product to make her business a success.

But she’s also reaching out to everyday citizens, who can bring their styrofoam directly to her recycling center. Mostly likely, they’ll meet Katherine English, Lauderdale’s operations manager. She’ll help unload the lightweight styrofoam.

It’s also English’s job to operate the recycling machine that does that crushing, heating and extruding. The end product is a 40-pound ingot of hardened styrofoam.

English tosses the styrofoam into the big bin on the recycling machine. It moves via conveyor belt to the top of the machine where where it goes through the crushing and heating. It comes out the other end as a long thick string that English stomps into the shape of an ingot.

Because the styrofoam is so light, with many air pockets, it takes about 90 pounds of styrofoam to make one pound of final product. That’s the reason Lauderdale needs so much to make her business economically viable.

She also needs about 40,000 pounds of processed styrofoam before NEPCO will send a truck to pick it up. She is expecting to ship out her first load this month.

Lauderdale will earn between $6,000 and $8,000 for that first load.

She’s the only recycler in the state that offers styrofoam recycling to the general public.

She’ll be at recycling events in Renton and Federal Way on Sept. 19. Customers can contact Lauderdale through her Web site, styrorecycle.com.