chemical recycling
Newsletter
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Newaygo, Michigan, plastics facility sparks concerns over pollution and climate impact
Plans to build a chemical recycling facility in Newaygo, Michigan, have raised environmental and regulatory questions about its impact on the community.
Anne McNeil, Aleksandr V. Zhukhovitskiy, and Yutan Getzler write for The Conversation.
In short:
- The Newaygo facility will convert plastic waste into fuels through pyrolysis, which emits greenhouse gases and pollutants.
- Michigan law classifies chemical recycling as manufacturing, allowing the plant to bypass stricter pollution controls.
- Experts argue that turning plastics into fuel worsens climate change and fails to qualify as true recycling.
Why this matters:
Burning plastic-derived fuels exacerbates air pollution and climate change. Labeling such processes as recycling may mislead the public while undermining efforts to promote sustainable waste management solutions.
Learn more: Chemical recycling grows — along with concerns about its environmental impacts
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Houston’s plan for plastic recycling faces major hurdles and fire hazards
The ambitious Houston Recycling Collaboration, aimed at addressing plastic waste, is stalling as unprocessed plastic piles up at a site with multiple fire code violations and no state approval.
James Bruggers reports for Inside Climate News and CBS News.
In short:
- Plastic waste from Houston's advanced recycling program has been piling up for over a year at a facility with multiple failed fire inspections.
- The chemical recycling process promoted by the city and corporate partners has yet to be implemented, with major safety and environmental concerns mounting.
- Industry partners are distancing themselves from the project, questioning its legality and safety.
Key quote:
“Five acres of paper and plastic piled up with little or no fire suppression: What could go wrong?”
— Richard Meier, private fire investigator
Why this matters:
As the plastic waste accumulates, so do concerns over environmental health and the effectiveness of so-called 'advanced' recycling methods. For a city that wants to set the standard, the reality is proving far more complicated—and messy—than anyone anticipated. Read more: What is chemical recycling?
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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.
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Youngstown has a long industrial history and is still home to numerous sources of industrial pollution, including a steel plant and other metal fabricators, a concrete plant, and a hazardous waste processing facility. (Credit: Kristina Marusic for 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.
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Newsletter
The Regenyx plant in Tigard, Oregon, converted polystyrene waste into plastic feedstock. (Credit: Ian Hughes/flickr)
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.
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The opening press conference for the INC-3 meeting held in Nairobi, Kenya, in Nov. 2023. (Credit: UNEP)
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.
The fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international, legally binding plastic pollution treaty will take place from April 23 to April 29 in Ottawa, Canada.
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
Plastic and our health
Plastic chemicals are more numerable and less regulated than previously thought
Recycling plastics “extremely problematic” due to toxic chemical additives
Every stage of plastic production and use is harming human health
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
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Newsletter
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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.
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