A newly formed company hopes to build a plan that would process for recycling around 350 million pounds of fluff left at a Superfund site in northeastern Pennsylvania. The federal Environmental Protection Agency is considering the possibility offered by the company, and is expected to make a decision by the end of the month on whether or not to go ahead with the project.
The Superfund site is at the former Eastern Diversified Metals Corp., site in Rush Township, Pa.
Hometown Plastics Inc., a newly formed company, claims that it has developed a process that is capable of eliminating the pile of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), as well as other contaminants.
"We're taking bad and turning it into good," said Christopher A. Verta, president and CEO of the company, which proposes to establish a plant somewhere in the vicinity of the pile to recycle the material over the next six years if further testing of the process is successful.
Verta said the company will need to establish a pilot plant at the site for additional testing of the process.
Establishment of the test plant would take about 90 days, with an additional 30 days of operation to fully test the process.
The pilot project would cost about $2 million, still less than the projected $13 million needed for capping. Verta hopes either Lucent or EPA will cover the $2 million research cost.
If the pilot project is successful, Verta would envision beginning the primary recycling project in spring, processing an estimated 20,000 pounds of fluff an hour and 320,000 pounds a day.
An EPA spokeswoman says an 88-page proposal for the new process, which utilizes various chemical reactions to consume the PCBs resulting in harmless recycled materials, is presently under review by the agency's office of research and development in Cincinnati.
"We as an agency are hoping to get a response and opinion by sometime next week," said Lisa M. Brown, community involvement coordinator for EPA Region III, headquartered in Philadelphia. Pottsville (PA) Republican Herald