Colorado city plans development of pyrolysis plant, plastics sorting facility

The city of Greeley, Colorado, is in talks with an unidentified company to develop a pyrolysis plant and an associated plastics sorting facility in the city.

The proposed pyrolysis plant would be next to Andersen's Sales & Salvage on 8th Street in Greeley, according to a memo from Benjamin Snow, Greeley’s director of Economic Health and Housing, and J.R. Salas, manager of the Greeley Urban Renewal Authority (GURA), sent Jan. 30 to GURA’s board of commissioners. The memo states that Andersen purchased that property from GURA in 2022 and holds the title to this property under the name ASR Energy LLC. Andersen intends to convey plastic scrap from its auto recycling operations to the adjacent site for processing, according to the report.

To make the plant economically viable, GURA reports that the unidentified company it is working with will collect household waste and sort it into plastics destined for the pyrolysis plant. The report states that the unidentified company has secured commitments from household waste haulers operating in Greeley to use their proposed local sorting facility site as the delivery point.

Snow tells Recycling Today Media Group that Greeley City Council still needs to approve plans for the facility, and, until that happens, he and GURA wish to keep the name of the company unidentified.

According to GURA, the unidentified company owns real estate in Greeley but is actively looking for an alternative location closer to the proposed pyrolysis plant.

GURA reports that the unidentified company has agreed to purchase the undeveloped portion of the Ironwood Business Park in Greeley for this project. In addition, GURA says the unidentified company plans to develop a municipal waste sorting and transfer station on the site, which would cost about $12 million and create 25 jobs. That company also would provide household plastic feedstock from its sorting and transfer station to the proposed pyrolysis plant in Greeley, which will cost about $85 million to construct and create about 35 jobs. Additionally, GURA says the company has agreed to donate the land it currently owns to the city for open space, trails and parks use.

Snow adds that if the plans for this facility are approved, the pyrolysis plant will use municipal solid waste and plastic scrap from the auto salvage operation to create biodiesel, biochar and energy.

“This company would propose to build not only a sorting facility, which would take municipal solid waste but also light industrial materials,” Snow says. “It also helps an existing auto [salvage] operation—right now, [the auto salvage] has nowhere to take plastic waste; they have to haul it to a landfill. This is a solution that would consider them a partner in the pyrolysis plant instead of hauling [the plastic] to a landfill.”