Advocacy group offers unflattering chemical recycling portrayal

The Washington-based Environmental Integrity Project, in a mid-August report posted to its Oil & Gas Watch website, has identified nine operating plastics chemical recycling plants in the United States, although numerous others are under construction or have been proposed.

The organization contrasts the nine operating plants with what it calls “a flurry of ambitious announcements” about plastics recycling facilities that will deploy processes including pyrolysis, gasification, solvolysis and solvent-based purification collectively known as chemical recycling or advanced recycling.

The report lists three plants under construction and another 19 that have been proposed. A separate map displays about three dozen facilities, including some of the under construction and proposed ones. Nine others are identified as operating and 10 others identified as canceled or shut down.

The report focuses on idled facilities, including the Regenyx facility in Tigard, Oregon, having reached just 40 percent of its designed capacity and sustaining operating losses of $22.4 million in 2020 and 2021.

The organization also says the Fulcrum BioEnergy waste-to-jet fuel plant in Nevada as has struggled to keep operations running consistently and that the company has failed to repay government bonds.

"It was shut down in May 2024 after operating for only two years [and] Fulcrum filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September of last year, canceling projects it planned to develop in Indiana and Texas,” writes Alexandra Shaykevich of Oil & Gas Watch.

Also drawing skepticism is the Brightmark Plastics plant in Ashley, Indiana.

“The company never managed to get the plant up and running at commercial scale and filed for bankruptcy in March,” the organization says.

The Environmental Integrity Project, citing Plastics News, says the bankruptcy filing showed the Ashley plant was only operating at 5 percent capacity and, as of 2023, had processed around 2,000 tons of plastic scrap in total.

“In May, the company bought itself back at auction with the hope of keeping the facility operational,” the organization adds.

While in its report the Environmental Integrity Project quotes a researcher who describes all plastic recycling as ineffective, packaging, recycled materials and waste handling companies—as well as some plastics producers—around the world have continued to invest in mechanical recycling projects that have tended be based on longer-term return on investment calculations.