High heat and UV light will degrade Styrofoam. The statue has been coated with a thin plastic coating to primarily prevent puncture damage. It is possible that it will prevent some UV damage for a while, but with the statue out in the sunlight it will not prevent heat damage, and in fact may accelerate heat damage. The sun will heat the Styrofoam past the temperature needed to degrade the product.

Heat damage will degrade the structural integrity of the foam, and allow any unpolymerized styrene monomer to leach out of the foam. As the structural integrity of the Styrofoam degrades, gas pockets will form beneath the thin plastic coating and the statue will begin degrade as a whole. When that happens pieces will crumble off the statue, and the statue will not only look ugly, it eventually will become difficult to maintain it standing up.

When the statue degrades the pieces pose a serious threat to birds and small animals who ingest the pieces. Styrofoam ingestion has been documented to cause starvation in birds and other wildlife.

While Styrofoam could be disposed of by allowing it to degrade in the sun, disposing of it by laying it on the ground outside, over a number of years, is not a viable option. You’d have to spread it out way too much and it would blow away with the lightest of breezes. The statue in question would require many acres to be spread out enough to degrade and would have to be mechanically broken apart for spreading. In a landfill disposal, the temperature of degrading materials isn’t nearly enough to degrade the Styrofoam and there’s no UV in the landfill either, so in a landfill the Styrofoam is taking up enormous volume for its weight, which alone poses a serious disposal problem.

As for use in roads, Styrofoam doesn’t have enough structure stability for that purpose. While Styrofoam has been used in agriculture in the past to prevent soil compaction, it is no longer used for that purpose since it is dangerous to birds and animals which forage and peck at food on the ground and will ingest the Styrofoam.

Frankly, in my opinion, the more than 20 major cities in the US which have banned the use of Styrofoam for food packaging and other uses such as beverage cups are doing our country a great service. I only hope that EPA gets that smart soon.

“From 2004 to present, Mr. Sorenson has been the Chief Executive Officer of YTB Travel Network, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of YTB International, Inc. From 2001 to 2004, Mr. Sorenson was a Vice President of YourTravelBiz.com, Inc., the privately-held company that merged into our predecessor, REZconnect, Inc., in December 2004. He has also been the Chief Executive Officer of CCMP, Inc. (d/b/a BerylMartin) since 2003.

“CCMP performs printing and shipping fulfillment activities for us on terms that were negotiated on an arms’ length basis. In 2006, we paid CCMP approximately $1,200,000 for these services, of which Mr. Sorenson has an indirect interest of approximately $300,000 based on his equity ownership of CCMP. “

BerylMartin was founded by Susan and Frank Brummett in 2000, who still own and operate the company. Besides the Brummetts, there is one general manager and a staff of 15 artists and designers. Where did the notion that YTB or the Tomers had an ownership interest in this small company come from?

and their new corporate office is being built according to LEEDS standards
http://www.thetelegraph.com/news/ytb_6654___article.html/cauthen_river.html?orderby=TimeStampAscending&oncommentsPage=1&showRecommendedOnly=0

Go to http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/852766/000114420408025876/v112591_defr-14a.htm

This is the definitive proxy statement for YTB. In it, it says under related transactions, “Printing Services. Three of our executive officers (who also serve as members of our Board of Directors)– J. Lloyd Tomer, J. Scott Tomer and J. Kim Sorensen– own a company that YourTravelBiz.com, Inc. utilizes for printing of its sales materials. ”

While this does not identify Beryl Martin by name, some further searching reveals it. Go to http://www.manta.com/coms2/dnbcompany_h94hsx and you’ll see that Sorenson is the President of Beryl Martin.

So, YTB does not own the company, but the principals of YTB are also the principals of Beryl Martin.

I think that’s close enough.

Second, if the statue does, in fact, fall apart, the styrofoam can be re-used under roads and other structures to prevent soil disturbances due to freezing and thawing

I don’t think it’s YTB Corp that owns the printing company, I think it’s one of the principals (I don’t remember if it’s one of the Tomers) that owns the company.