Summarised_Solution:
Pink foam is OK but not really intended for this purpose.
Possibly the best deal of all is from DESCO !!!
Their cheapest per area suitable material is this = Desco 12150 - 24" x 36" x 1/8" high density at $US7.14. That's a magical ~$1.20/ft^2 and you can use 2 layers to get 1/4" etc. Multilayers is never quite the same but is good enough. Shipping cost unknown. May make or break order.
The pink foam material is usually used for shipping as a wrapper or outer layer . It may not be measurably surcace conductive. It may well do the job "well enough" but you can probably do better.
Idea is high density conductive foam that is thick enough that IC pins do not push right through. Thinner works as well but the IC's stand off the surface and you don't get the same seating feel when pressing them in.
RS are not known for their low prices.
Heree they have 305 mm x 305mm x 6mm (1 square foot x 1/4 inch) of conductive foam for $NZ2.78
RS550-066. Lower in $US hopefully. NB: This is low desnisty foam. Others below probably hi density. Low density works OK, dies sooner, need to be sure it always contacts all pins as it gets older but should be a good starting material.
Many related products. Good site. Dearer than RS but high density. eg $22.32/6 square feet x 1/4 " or 3.72 / ft^2. here Texas HQ.
Hmmm. RS USA may not have the NZ foam. RS India does.
RS US have this
DESCO 12250 24" x 36" x 1/4" $US23.66.
Thy also have 3/8" thick version for $41.46 here.
8 sellers here with RS being cheapest :-(.
Digikey list it and other versions but no stock and dearer here
Desco sell it theselves for around $25 here
BUT they do a range of closely related products here
DESCO !!!
And probably best of all for you is this
Desco 12150 - 24" x 36" x 1/8" high density at $US7.14.
The 1/8" is annoying, but at ~ $1.20/ft^2 it's excellent.
You can use 2 layers to get 1/4" for $2.40/ft^2 and 3 layers to ... :-).
Multilayers is never quite the same but is good enough.
Shipping cost unknown. May make or break order.
Dow on conductive foams. Reference only but very ionteresting here
Foam. Jameco. Too dear. Reference only at $US8/ft^2 here
Some excellent idea starters for conductive materials here
There are a few basic choices that may help:
A) Use conductive (static dissipative) materials to help drain away the charges. Of course any insulating surface can retain a charge despite being sitting on a base with a conductive property, though the smaller the insulating structures or the closer they are to a dissipative surface, the better the charge dissipation will be. You may or may not be able to dope or coat your materials with a dissipative constituent or film; such dissipative film coating materials are available as anti-static wipes, cleaners, floor / worktable treatment solutions, et. al.
B) Use a conductive system like the grounded brushed previously referred to to carry exess charges away.
C) Increase the natural dissipative and charge generating properties of the area / environment, for instance by changing the humidity to promote more leakage and less triboelectric action than one would see otherwise. Cool, moist environments are less problematic than hot, dry ones.
D) This is probably the main "catch all" option you have after having done the basics of preventing charging and dissipating charges through materials and system engineering. There are common ESD control devices that scale from small work area sized (perhaps the size of your machine's bed and immediate environment) to large work table / room sized. They are called bipolar ionizers or static control ionizers / neutralizers. They are ion generators coupled with an appropriate fan to disperse the ionized air, but they have a control system that forces the net ionic output of the machine's air stream to be electrically neutral by generating an equal amount of positive and negative air ions so that the machine itself will not contribute to a net charging of the environment it is treating. The charged ions on undesirably charged surfaces will attract oppositely charged ions in the airstream and so the excess charge will be neutralized. Surplus ions will be neutralized by your grounding / dissipative static control processes and by mutual annihilation et. al.
As for protecting electronics, you should have each electronic assembly's inputs and outputs protected from the amount of ESD that it needs to tolerate. Typically providing a good ground and then using TVS devices between the I/O lines and ground is the first stage of protection and then having some kind of series impedance such as a R/C filter inward of the TVS is another stage. Sometimes you can protect the supply rails with TVS and OVP devices and then use things like rail clamp devices to help shunt transients on other lines to the power rails. Series chokes, ferrite beads, et.al. will protect the I/Os from EMI and help limit fast transients from generating such large voltage spikes inside the protected equipment.
Best Answer
I store my ESD sensitive parts by sticking their leads in ESD foam, then putting them in an ordinary bin. The foam looks like this:
I've never purchased it; I've just acquired it over time from ordering parts. This scheme probably isn't up to spec for a manufacturing operation, but for storing cheap parts for tinkering at home, quite sufficient.
There are also ESD plastic tubes molded for bigger components. They look like this:
I've collected quite a few for DIP and TO-220 packages, and store some in a pencil cup, or rubber-banded together.
For resistors, see if you can find one of these gems:
Ohmite made them years ago and I've never seen anything better. No longer in production, but you can find them on ebay with "ohmite resistor drawer".