chemical recycling
Another chemical recycling plant closure offers ‘flashing red light’ to nascent industry
Fulcrum BioFuels’ shuttered “sustainable aviation fuel” plant is the latest facility to run into technical and financial challenges.
For the second time this year, a chemical recycling plant built to turn waste into usable products has closed, casting further doubt on the viability of an upstart industry that has been plagued by financial and technical challenges in its effort to scale up.
Fulcrum BioFuels launched its Sierra plant outside Reno, Nevada, in 2022 with the goal of converting municipal solid waste into “sustainable aviation fuel.” But in May of this year the company suddenly laid off its roughly 100 employees and shuttered its website, as Bloomberg first reported. The decision came just as the plant was ready to reopen after a series of technical challenges had forced it offline, continuing a trend of delays and setbacks for a facility that had initially been slated to open in 2010.
Fulcrum representatives did not respond to emails and phone calls and little is yet clear about the company’s future, while its plans to build a larger plant in Gary, Indiana, appear to be hanging on by a thread following bond defaults. Carolyn McCrady, a co-founder of Gary Advocates for Responsible Development, which formed in 2021 to oppose Fulcrum’s plans, said her organization is still challenging Fulcrum’s air permit to build a plant in the city as it waits to learn more about the company’s next steps.
“We feel vindicated and that we were right all along,” McCrady told EHN. “We think all communities should put on their critical thinking hats when people like these come to town and offer something that’s too good to be true.”
As of September 2023, there were 11 constructed chemical recycling facilities in the country using pyrolysis or gasification to convert plastic into fuel or chemicals that can then be used to create new plastic, according to a report from Beyond Plastics and the International Pollutants Elimination Network. Two of those have now closed — news welcomed by environmental advocates concerned that the plants encourage plastic production and discourage solutions that address the roots of the global plastics crisis. Greenhouse gas emissions from the processing of plastic waste are also 10 to 100 times worse than those from the production of virgin plastic, and the release of plastic additives during chemical recycling can cause reproductive, cardiovascular and endocrine harm, the Beyond Plastics report found.
For the chemical recycling industry—facing a precarious moment with state legislation and a global plastic treaty developing—the closure is another indication of financial, technical and regulatory headwinds. Last fall, Youngstown City Council in Ohio voted against SOBE Thermal’s proposal for a plant that would have converted tires into gas. In February, the Regenyx plant in Oregon, which converted plastic waste into a polystyrene precursor, closed before ever reaching capacity, suffering millions in financial losses in the process. And in April, Encina canceled its plans to build one of the country’s largest chemical recycling plants in Pennsylvania.
The chemical recycling industry “will continue to face enormous challenges, both in securing financing, operating economically and producing products that companies want to buy,” Jenny Gitliz, director of solutions to plastic pollution at Beyond Plastics, told EHN. The fact that plastic has so many different chemicals in it further complicates the various conversion processes now in use, Gitliz explained.
Closure a “black eye” for waste-to-fuel efforts
Fulcrum launched in Pleasanton, California, in 2007, focused on developing the infrastructure to use an unusual feedstock to create jet fuel: municipal solid waste. At its Sierra plant, it turned shredded waste, including up to 20% plastic, into synthetic gas through a process called gasification, which heats the feedstock in a low-oxygen environment. After a second step in which the gas is cleaned up, it enters a Fischer-Tropsch reactor, in which it is converted into aviation fuel. Fulcrum’s facility was the first to license the Fischer-Tropsch technology, designed by BP and Johnson Matthey. A spokesperson for BP declined to comment on the closure of Fulcrum’s plant but said the technology can operate economically at large and small scales and is “a key technology in e-fuels production pathways” that it plans to continue to license and commercialize.
The chemical recycling industry “will continue to face enormous challenges, both in securing financing, operating economically and producing products that companies want to buy.” — Jenny Gitliz, director of solutions to plastic pollution at Beyond Plastics
The Sierra plant cost $300 million to build and had a capacity of 12 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, per year, according to a report published last fall by Beyond Plastics and IPEN. But its first shipment contained just 350 gallons, Bloomberg reported, and the unexpected creation of nitric acid, emissions of nitrogen oxide and the buildup of material in its gasification process contributed to a start-and-stop nature that prevented the plant from ever reaching capacity.
Before closing the Sierra plant, Fulcrum had entered forbearance on $289 million in bonds. The Indiana Finance Authority had authorized $500 million in bonds for Fulcrum’s planned facility in Gary, but the company failed to secure funding for the 52-acre lakefront property where it hoped to build, McCrady said, delaying that project. Fulcrum had also announced its intention to build facilities in Baytown, Texas, and the United Kingdom.
Fulcrum’s partners on the Sierra project included Waste Connections, which was slated to supply waste to the facility and did not respond to a request for comment on the closure. United Airlines invested $30 million in Fulcrum and did not respond to a request for comment. Fulcrum also had an offtake agreement with Japan Airlines, which did not respond to a request for comment. BP had invested $30 million in Fulcrum with a plan to take up to 50 million gallons of fuel per year from its plants, far exceeding the Sierra plant’s capacity.
The aviation industry is racing to meet its goal of making 10% of its fuel sustainable by 2030, but the total SAF volume of 160 million gallons in 2023 was “a drop in the bucket” of the total 100 billion gallons of fuel used, said Steve Csonka, executive director of the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative, a public-private partnership formed in 2006. The conversion of municipal solid waste into fuel could still contribute to that effort—as could the Sierra plant if it’s brought back online by another company—despite the challenge of utilizing a non-homogenous feedstock, Csonka said. But the Sierra plant’s closure is a “black eye” that will hinder that broader project, he said.
Chemical recycling controversy
Ross Eisenberg, president of America’s Plastic Makers, an industry trade group, said in a statement that 10 new or expanded chemical recycling facilities are in development and the industry is in the midst of a normal, lengthy process to scale up. “With chemical recycling able to produce a wide variety of products at the same time as hundreds of companies are committing to use more recycled plastic, there is a tremendous opportunity in the U.S. to recycle more of our post-use materials,” he said.
But to Anja Brandon, associate director of U.S. plastics policy at the Ocean Conservancy, the Sierra plant’s closure is further evidence that the environmental impacts and economics of chemical recycling “just don’t add up.”
“It’s a flashing red light for these other facilities—really for the potential investors or lenders to these other facilities—that this is an industry that has and continues to fail, which I hope decreases the investment and drive for these types of facilities and opens up the market for investments in real upstream solutions,” Brandon told EHN.
Listen: Why communities in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia are fighting chemical recycling plants
EHN reporter Kristina Marusic discusses her new three-part series on the controversies surrounding chemical recycling.
PITTSBURGH — EHN reporter Kristina Marusic recently spoke with The Allegheny Front about three communities in the Ohio River Valley that are fighting proposed chemical recycling plants.
Chemical recycling is an umbrella term for processes that use heat, chemicals or both to break down plastic waste into component parts for reuse as plastic feedstocks or as fuel. The industry says chemical recycling could help solve the plastic waste crisis, but some environmental health advocates say chemical recycling facilities worsen climate change and emit toxic chemicals.
Marusic recently wrote about community fights to stop proposed advanced recycling facilities in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Listen to her interview with The Allegheny Frontbelow.
Latest chemical recycling plant closing spurs concern over the industry’s viability
Oregon’s Regenyx plant announced its closing in late February, with those involved calling it a success, despite never reaching planned capacity and millions of dollars lost.
In the midst of domestic and international fights over the future of chemical recycling, the impending closure of a plant in Tigard, Oregon, built to convert polystyrene waste into plastic feedstock, has raised a new round of questions about the efficacy and feasibility of the process.
Regenyx, which was run by Agilyx and Americas Styrenics, will cease operations at the end of April, Agilyx announced in late February. The joint venture, launched in 2019, was one of just 11 facilities in the U.S. that use heat and/or chemicals to break down plastic waste for reuse as plastic feedstocks or as fuel. It was a “demonstration project” and successfully met its objectives, including proving the viability of the technology, but it would be cost-prohibitive to maintain and upgrade the plant’s dated equipment, Agilyx senior vice president of engineering and execution Mark Barranco said in a statement.
Jenny Gitlitz, director of solutions to plastic pollution at Beyond Plastics, described the notion that the plant was successful as “pure spin.” The facility had the capacity to handle 3,650 tons of waste per year, but diverted just 3,000 tons from landfills across its lifetime, Agilyx said. Of that amount, approximately 70% was converted to styrene monomer to be turned into new polystyrene products, the company said. In keeping with a series of setbacks the plastics industry has faced in attempting to build out chemical recycling infrastructure, the joint venture reportedly lost more than $4.5 million since 2021, including delays in the development of other Agilyx facilities, Gitlitz said. She anticipates more closures in the future.
“This industry is more speculative than it is real,” Gitlitz told EHN.
The Regenyx facility was one of two chemical recycling plants west of Texas, alongside Fulcrum Sierra BioFuels in McCarran, Nevada, which turns household waste into aviation and diesel fuel and recently defaulted on $289 million in bonds, stoking doubt about its economic viability. Another Agilyx-designed plant, based in Portland and operated by Waste Management, closed in 2014 after just 16 months in use. The company wanted to build a facility on the West Coast capable of handling 50 tons of plastic waste per day, but later relocated that plan to the Gulf Coast and doubled its expected capacity. After progressing through preliminary engineering design, that project has been paused, Barranco said. Another planned Agilyx facility, the proposed 100-ton-per-day TruSytrenyx plant in Channahon, Illinois, was announced in 2020 but is still awaiting a funding decision. Meanwhile, Agilyx is also expanding into Japan, where its Toyo Styrene facility recently completed construction.
Ross Eisenberg, president of industry association America’s Plastic Makers, said the Regenyx facility succeeded in its goal and its closure shouldn’t affect other chemical recycling facilities.
“The plastics industry is investing billions of dollars in chemical recycling here in the United States to create a more circular system for a variety of types of used plastic that keeps these valuable resources in use,” Eisenberg said in a statement.
Closed Loop Partners, an investment firm focused on the circular economy, estimated in 2021 that the market for recycled plastics could be as high as $120 billion annually. The firm projected demand for recycled plastics to reach 5 million to 7.5 million metric tons by 2030, requiring supply to double or triple.
Gitlitz said she’s “extremely skeptical” about the economic and operational viability of chemical recycling technology, as well as its ability to address the plastic crisis.
“This industry is more speculative than it is real.” - Jenny Gitlitz, Beyond Plastics
A Beyond Plastics report from October 2023 found that Agilyx suffered $22.4 million in operating losses in 2020 and 2021. The report also found that the Regenyx facility produced 211 tons of styrene waste that was shipped off-site to be burned, along with generating nearly 500 tons of hazardous waste. Elsewhere, PureCycle reported net losses of $215 million from 2020 through 2022 because of a three-year delay in the construction of its plant in Ironton, Ohio, Beyond Plastics found. That facility was completed in May 2023, then closed for months later in the year because of a full-plant power outage that contributed to mechanical failures.
Celeste Meiffren-Swango, state director for green advocacy group Environment Oregon, said the failure of operational chemical recycling facilities to reach their announced capacity leaves them in an extended “startup phase.” Given the financial challenge of scaling up and the operational issues at some plants, she doesn’t expect that to change.
“[Chemical recycling] is extremely energy intensive, really expensive and just one in a line of examples of the plastics industry’s proposed solutions that further entrench us in the linear economy while doing nothing to stop the production of single-use plastics,” Meiffren-Swango told EHN. “People want an easy solution to the plastic waste crisis and there just isn’t one.”
To Meiffren-Swango, the Regenyx closure represents further evidence that chemical recycling isn’t viable—and an opportunity to pivot toward more effective methods of dealing with plastic waste.
“The plastics industry could take this as a warning sign that this model is not sustainable and use all of the money they’ve been investing in these facilities to invest in actual solutions to the plastic waste crisis, including making less plastic and investing in models like reusability, instead of continuing to literally burn all their money trying to make chemical recycling work,” Meiffren-Swango said.
Everything you need to know for the fourth round of global plastic pollution treaty talks
Countries will meet this month in Ottawa to move forward on the historic treaty — but obstacles remain.
In the first three sessions of treaty talks, negotiators from about 175 countries — along with industry representatives, environmentalists and others — met to advance a treaty to address global plastic pollution.
What’s at stake in the plastic treaty talks?
The plastic crisis is threatening both the planet and human and wildlife health.
- Global plastic waste is set to almost triple by 2060.
- The world generates roughly 400 million tons of plastic waste each year.
- Less than 10% of plastic ever made has been recycled.
The treaty is the first international attempt to address this.
What’s the state of the plastic treaty?
Consensus was elusive at the last round of talks in Kenya.
There is a High Ambition Coalition of countries that wants an end to plastic pollution by 2040. There is also a Global Coalition for Plastics Sustainability — largely nations economically reliant on fossil fuels such as Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, Cuba, China and Bahrain — that has positioned itself as the counterbalance to the High Ambition Coalition and is pushing for a larger focus on addressing plastic waste (via chemical and mechanical recycling and other means) rather than plastic bans or production limits. The U.S. is not part of either.
Some sticking points include:
- Regulating the chemicals in plastic production
- Plastic production caps
- The role of chemical recycling and bioplastics
Where can I learn more about the plastic treaty?
You can see all of the details of the upcoming treaty meeting at the UN Environment Programme website.
Want to learn more broadly about the treaty and how plastic pollution impacts our health? Our newsroom has been hard at work on exploring these issues. Below we have articles to help you understand the treaty process and progress, plastic impacts to our health and chemical recycling and bioplastics.
And follow our newsroom on X, Instagram or Facebook to stay up-to-date on this historic treaty.Plastic treaty coverage
“Plastic will overwhelm us:” Scientists say health should be the core of global plastic treaty
Opinion: Pete Myers discusses the "Health Scientists' Global Plastic Treaty"
Plastics treaty draft underway, but will the most impacted countries be included?
Opinion: UN plastics treaty should prioritize health and climate change
Op-Ed: How the United Nations could avoid silencing voices during Plastic Treaty negotiations
Scientists: US needs to support a strong global agreement to curb plastic pollution
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Massive new database on how plastic chemicals harm our health
Chemical recycling and bioplastics
Bioplastics: sustainable solution or distraction from the plastic waste crisis?
Chemical recycling grows — along with concerns about its environmental impacts
This will be a big year in shaping the future of chemical recycling
Chemical recycling “a dangerous deception” for solving plastic pollution: Report
Q&A: Director of sustainability at Eastman Chemical Company talks chemical recycling
Latest chemical recycling plant closing spurs concern over the industry’s viability
Plastic recycling's new era faces hurdles
Despite big brands' pledges for a greener future, advanced recycling technology lags in effectiveness.
In short:
- Big companies like Nestlé and Procter & Gamble invest in chemical recycling (also known as "advanced recycling") plants to meet environmental goals, but the technology is problematic.
- PureCycle Technologies, central to these efforts, struggles with technical issues and skepticism over its ability to process hard-to-recycle plastics.
- Critics argue the industry promotes recycling as a solution to deflect from the real issue: the need to reduce plastic production.
Key quote:
“The industry is trying to say they have a solution. It’s a non-solution.”
-- Terrence J. Collins, professor of chemistry and sustainability science at Carnegie Mellon University
Why this matters:
Proposals are in the works for chemical recycling plants across the U.S. To learn more, check out EHN's explainer, along with our recent reporting on conflicts and impacts of chemical recycling in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Residents fear Pennsylvania, West Virginia chemical recycling proposals will deepen fossil fuel ties and pollution problems
"We’d like to be talking about positive things, focusing on our renewable energy future.”
PITTSBURGH — When Sandy Field first heard about the plan to build a new chemical recycling facility in her community in Point Township, Pennsylvania, she thought it sounded like a great idea.
“The plastic waste crisis is a real problem and I thought this sounded like a good solution,” she told Environmental Health News (EHN). “But then I went to the company’s open house and did some more research and I started to realize what a toxic process they’re proposing, taking 450,000 tons of plastic, melting it and making chemicals out of it right next to our river.”
The proposal came from Encina, a Texas-based company that hopes to build chemical recycling plants in the U.S., Mexico, Europe, Middle East and Asia. To date, the company has only recycled plastic at a small demonstration facility in San Antonio, Texas. The facility in Point Township, a suburban and farmland community of about 4,000 people, would be their first attempt to scale their operations.
Field, who lives about four miles from the proposed site, joined a campaign to stop the plant, citing concerns about air emissions and discharges of unregulated pollutants including microplastics and “forever chemicals”(commonly known as PFAS) into the Susquehanna River.
There are proposals in the works for similar chemical recycling plants across the country. According to a 2023 report by the nonprofit activist organization Beyond Plastics, 11 such facilities had already been constructed in the U.S. as of September 2023, with one closing this year.
The Encina site is part of a broader trend of proposed chemical recycling facilities in the Appalachian region. One of the more high profile proposed plants in Youngstown, Ohio, by SOBE Thermal Energy Systems, is currently on hold after the city passed a one-year moratorium on chemical recycling.
Experts say Encina and another proposed chemical recycling facility in Follansbee, West Virginia, are not geographic accidents. Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley are already home to a dense network of oil and gas infrastructure, including fracking and conventional wells, pipelines and a massive plastics plant. Chemical recycling facilities would represent a further expansion of this network, adding to the region’s overall burden of toxic pollution and continuing demand for fossil fuels and related infrastructure.
For example, in 2021, the nonprofit environmental advocacy group PennFuture reported that Pennsylvania subsidizes fossil fuels with an annual amount of $3.8 billion. The shale gas industry accounts for 52.1% of these subsidies, or $2 billion.
Jess Conard, Appalachia director of the nonprofit activist organization Beyond Plastics, lives in East Palestine, Ohio, and experienced the risks associated with living near this type of infrastructure firsthand last year, when a train carrying chemicals used to make plastic derailed and caught fire, poisoning the town.
“The chemicals that make plastic are very hazardous to our health, and when you transition the waste from a solid product to a vapor through advanced recycling, it’s not actually managing the waste,” Conard said. “It’s just changing the medium in which we’re exposed to these chemicals.”
“The river is a major focus of our lives”
Sandy Field kayaking on the Susquehanna River downstream of the proposed chemical recycling site.
Credit: Sandy Field
Sally Field speaking at our public meeting at the Unitarian church in Northumberland , PA, near the proposed chemical recycling site.
Credit: Sally Field
Encina’s proposed Pennsylvania plant would process up to 450,000 tons of plastic each year by melting them and using chemicals to break them down into substances like benzene, toluene and xylenes, which would then be sold to plastics manufacturers. The process also creates liquid oil products and solid hazardous waste. The company’s proposal included drawing as much as 1.7 million gallons of water a day from the Susquehanna River and discharging as much as 2.9 million gallons a day back into the waterway.
“The river is a major focus of our lives,” Field said. “We use it for recreation and fishing and we all drink out of it, and it’s really central to the character of the Susquehanna Valley.”
In an email, a spokesperson for Encina said the company would use “best-in-class technology” to remove pollutants and microplastics prior to discharging water into the Susquehanna and noted that their air and water emissions data would be public.
“The health and safety of our people and the communities in which we operate is our top priority,” the Encina spokesperson said. “We address community concerns through regular meetings and communications where we listen and discuss our plans for water treatment and protection.”
In October, Encina withdrew its permit application for stormwater management — which the company needs in order to start construction — after state regulators said it was deficient, but the company said it is still moving forward with plans for the site.
“The river is a major focus of our lives.” - Sally Field
Local officials have had mixed reactions to the proposal, with some welcoming the temporary construction jobs the project would bring to the region and others expressing concern about environmental health impacts. In 2020, former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf signed into law a bill exempting chemical recycling facilities from having to obtain a solid waste permit. The Encina plant had already been proposed at the time and it remains the only proposed chemical recycling facility in the state, so the bill is seen as having been passed specifically to benefit Encina.
Pennsylvania is one of 24 states — including Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky — that have passed similar laws, which the American Chemistry Council has lobbied for, to reclassify chemical recycling facilities as manufacturing rather than waste facilities, which reduces regulatory oversight and makes it easier for these companies to obtain public subsidies.
Field sees Encina’s project as one of several “false solutions” being pushed by industrial interests in response to mounting concern over climate change and plastic pollution. A longtime climate activist, Field joined No False Solutions PA, a coalition of advocacy groups opposing chemical recycling, carbon capture, hydrogen energy and fracking.
Field co-authored a 50-page statement published by the group in January that decries these industries as “emerging technologies that claim to be solutions to the climate crisis but in fact exacerbate the climate crisis, damage the environment and/or harm public health.”
“We’d like to be talking about positive things, focusing on our renewable energy future, but instead we’re stuck playing whack-a-mole with every dumb idea that comes out of the fossil fuel industry as they decline and they’re just trying to stay in business,” Field said.
For Field, stopping Encina’s proposed plant represents the importance of taking a stand against these “false solutions” in Pennsylvania.
“This is the first advanced recycling facility being proposed in Pennsylvania, so we really feel an obligation to stop it,” Field said. “These false solutions would all take Pennsylvania in the wrong direction, moving backwards on our health and the environment.”
“Ask lots of questions”
The Better Vision for the Valley event put on by the Ohio Valley Environmental Advocates in October.
Credit: OVEA
Frank Rocchio doesn’t resemble a stereotypical environmental activist.
His shaved head and well-tailored suits are more in line with his decade-long career in the Secret Service and counter-terrorism intelligence in Washington, D.C., or his current role as a wealth management advisor.
But last year Rocchio and his wife founded Ohio Valley Environmental Advocates, a community advocacy group dedicated to stopping a proposed chemical recycling facility in Follansbee, West Virginia, about 40 miles southwest of Pittsburgh.
Rocchio grew up in Follansbee, and he and his wife moved back there a few years ago to raise their son and daughter, who are now six and eight years old, wanting to be closer to Rocchio’s parents and live at a slower pace. Their home is within a couple miles of Empire Diversified Energy’s proposed advanced recycling plant.
“‘Environmental’ is in our name but public health is really our main concern,” Rocchio told EHN. “This region is bleeding money. We’d like to welcome any industry that can bring in jobs, as long as that industry is being responsible and putting the health and safety of our community at the forefront.”
Initially, Empire Diversified Energy proposed a medical waste processing plant — which promptly drew opposition from the community. After ditching that plan, the company announced that it wanted to use a new “pre-pyrolysis process” to recycle plastic waste, which involves using heat and chemicals to break plastic products down into component parts.
But according to Rocchio, the company’s story just kept changing — from what they wanted to do at the plant to whether or not they’d require an air permit — and these incongruities created mistrust.
“Their answers to our questions kept changing and there were a lot of red flags, so my wife and I just started digging,” Rocchio said. They learned that the pre-pyrolysis technology the company intended to use is new and hasn’t yet been used at scale in the U.S., that the site would emit greenhouse gasses and toxic chemicals and that the plant was expected to create a maximum of 25 new jobs, according to Rocchio.
"We’d like to welcome any industry that can bring in jobs, as long as that industry is being responsible and putting the health and safety of our community at the forefront.” - Frank Rocchio
They also learned that the region was already home to numerous major air polluters and that Follansbee is in a valley prone to weather inversions that trap pollutants, so they worried about the cumulative effects of adding more toxic air emissions to that mix. They found the same stories about accidents and fires at other chemical recycling plants that prompted concerns about SOBE’s proposed plant in Youngstown.
Fofllansbee’s city council and mayor have asked Empire Diversified to meet with the community and answer questions prior to approving building permits at the site, with at least one councilmember saying he was uncomfortable approving these permits until he had a more comprehensive understanding of the company’s plan. Several public meetings have been held since then. Local union leaders have said the company might hire union members and expressed support for the project. Empire Diversified has filed an application for a state air quality permit from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection that’s still under review.
“East Palestine was also a warning in terms of supportive infrastructure and emergency services,” Rocchio said. “We know they’d be trucking in, railing in and barging in feedstock and supplies for this plant, and we only have a volunteer fire department here.”
Empire Diversified Energy did not respond to a request for comment, but the company is still pursuing permits for the facility and says it intends to hold community meetings each month to increase transparency around its plans.
Roccio offered advice to other communities facing proposals for advanced recycling facilities.
“Ask a lot of questions,” he said. “Do your research. Especially if your tax money is subsidizing something like this, you need to ask how much money is likely to stay in the local economy and how many jobs will be created.”
“Seek out subject matter experts in academia,” he added. “They’re usually happy to get on the phone about these things and you’ll need technical expertise to be able to hold the people who are writing these permits accountable. Above all, don’t stop asking questions.”
Q&A: Director of sustainability at Eastman Chemical Company talks chemical recycling
As fights over chemical recycling spread, we sat down to talk about one of the largest such facilities.
Chemical recycling, or advanced recycling, is an umbrella term for processes that use heat and/or chemicals to break down plastic waste into component parts for reuse as plastic feedstocks or as fuel.
These processes are different from conventional or mechanical plastic recycling, which breaks down plastic waste physically but not at a molecular level. Only 5% to 6% of plastic waste gets recycled in the U.S., and proponents of chemical recycling say the process could help.
But it’s controversial. Environmental health advocates say chemical recycling is energy intensive and inefficient, creates toxic waste, contributes to climate change, and creates the false promise of a circular economy for plastics.
Learn more about these concerns:
This will be a big year in shaping the future of chemical recycling
Eastman Chemical Company operates one of the largest chemical recycling facilities in the U.S. out of its Kingsport, Tennessee, plastics plant, where they use chemical processes to break waste plastic down into feedstocks that are then turned into things like water bottles, food and personal care product packaging, and plastic houseware.
The chemical recycling portion of the plant is still in the start-up phase. It processed around 20 million pounds of plastic in 2023, and the company hopes to eventually recycle up to 250 million pounds of waste plastic annually.
The other portion of Eastman Chemical Company’s Kingsport, Tennessee plant produces plastic using traditional methods. The plant was fined $45,500 in October 2023 by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation for violating clean air laws with toxic emissions of sulfur dioxide and volatile organic compounds more than 30 times over legal limits. The company averaged about five fines per year for smaller violations between 2016 and 2022.
Eastman Chemical Company says it is committed to being a good neighbor, and hopes to address concerns about chemical recycling by ensuring that their process supplements mechanical recycling, only reprocessing plastic to create additional plastic (rather than fuel), and utilizing these technologies only when they can help lower greenhouse gas emissions.
EHN sat down with Chris Layton, the director of sustainability for specialty plastics at Eastman Chemical to learn more. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.