A company planning to build a huge plastics recycling facility in Erie, Pennsylvania, got a big boost this summer when the U.S. Department of Energy announced a conditional loan guarantee for the project of $182.6 million.
The facility would recycle some plastics for reuse and send other types to a steel plant in Indiana for use in the steelmaking process. Supporters see an opportunity to reuse plastic waste and create jobs, while some residents and environmental groups say it’s a bad idea.
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IRG’s recycling plan
Recycling rates for plastics in the U.S. are a lot lower than you might think, only 5 to 6 percent. Mitch Hecht, CEO of Erie-based International Recycling Group, or IRG, wants to change that.
During an IRG webinar held in June 2022 for the plastics industry in Erie, Hecht said that to recycle more plastic, it needs to be easier for people. So, IRG plans to collect all types of plastics “to remove the frustration from households [and] homeowners to figure out what’s good plastic and bad plastic, what goes in the recycle bin, and what goes in the trash,” he said during the webinar. Hecht declined an interview with The Allegheny Front.
Outside the site where IRG plans to build its recycling plant in Erie is a container for newBin, the company’s plastic collection system. Photo: Julie Grant / The Allegheny Front
IRG plans to create a collection system and truck plastic from 750 miles around to a new industrial-scale facility in Erie, where the material will be sorted and processed “at very high speed, incredibly low cost, [and] with pinpoint accuracy, we can then separate out those resins that can go back into recycling and turned back into products,” Hecht said during the webinar.
At the new plant, plastics labeled #1, like water and soda bottles, #2, including jugs for milk and laundry detergent, and #5, used in yogurt containers will be sorted out for recycling.
“Those have really good recycling markets already,” said Gamini Mendis, assistant professor of plastics engineering technology at Penn State University’s nearby Behrend campus.
At the Penn State Behrend plastics lab, assistant professor Gamini Mendis shows off recycled plastic pellets, similar to what IRG plans to produce at its new plant in Erie. Photo: Julie Grant / The Allegheny Front
At the Penn State plastics lab, Mendis reached into a large barrel, filled with white-colored plastic plastic bits, similar to what IRG plans to make.
“These are our plastic pellets. A lot of folks call them nurdles,” Mendis said.
IRG plans to sell recycled plastic pellets and flakes to manufacturers for recycled content in things like margarine tubs and deodorant stick containers. According to the company, it will recycle around 160,000 tons of plastic a year.
What about the unrecyclable plastics?
The IRG plant will also use the plastic that isn’t currently recycled, like styrofoam egg cartons and plastic film, which are usually sent to a landfill, to create a product it calls CleanRed.
It plans to sell its CleanRed to an undisclosed plant in northwest Indiana to replace coal in the steelmaking process.
“So instead of using coke or coal to chemically turn iron oxide into iron metal, they’re using plastic,” Mendis said. “There are folks that do this out in Japan and in Germany. These facilities exist.”
In a study commissioned by IRG and provided to The Allegheny Front, Mendis looked at the implications for climate change and found that using CleanRed at a steel plant would reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by more than 1.8 million tons, the equivalent of removing 400 thousand cars from the road each year.
“You are significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions just because you’re avoiding the production of coking coal,” Mendis said.
The DOE, which declined an interview and would not provide its analysis, said in an email that it found a 24% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions using CleanRed in steelmaking. This is one reason why the IRG project qualifies for the DOE’s $182.6 million loan guarantee through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the Biden administration’s landmark climate law.
Supporters in Erie
The local business community in Erie supports it, like Erie Insurance and the local plastics industry, along with Gary Horton, president of the Erie chapter of the NAACP and CEO and president of the Urban Erie Community Development Corporation.
At his office at the east end of Erie, where unemployment rates are high, Horton said he was excited that IRG is promising new jobs for people in his neighborhood, which is considered an environmental justice area by the state.
“If it’s going to create the jobs and the training and the business opportunities that they have been promoting to me, then why wouldn’t I be for it, if it’s going to benefit people that we serve?” Horton said. He points to the company’s community benefits plan, which DOE requires for nearly all IRA projects and loan applications.
Neither Horton nor the company provided a copy of the plan. Instead, IRG wrote a summary of the plan for The Allegheny Front that calls for 221 employees in the 3rd year of operation, including “161 technicians, machine operators, and general laborers, as well as 60 managers, supervisors, salespeople, and executives,” with a goal of “employing at least 66% of our technical and operations team from the local low-income community.”
To Gary Horton, the involvement of the DOE will help ensure this happens. “I believe with the federal government’s oversight and participation with [IRG], the promises that [the company] make[s] to communities about creating jobs and opportunity, they are going to be held accountable or responsible for that,” he said.
Gary Horton, president and CEO of the Urban Erie Community Development Corporation, talks with residents about the jobs he expects if IRG opens its recycling plant. Photo: Julie Grant / The Allegheny Front
Some Erie residents and environmental groups are concerned
Later that morning, as Horton spoke to people at a nearby community garden, Art Leopold walked up. He’s an old friend of Horton’s, but he disagrees with him about the IRG plant. Leopold worries that this section of Erie has not yet recovered from the pollution caused by Erie Coke, which closed five years ago. He also doubts the IRG project will provide family-sustaining wages.
But mostly, Leopold wants the company to respond directly to citizens who have been asking questions about the project for years. “They’ve never been straight with the answers. They always hold us suspect, those people who care about the environment and the people in the neighborhood,” Leopold said.
IRG counters that it held a town hall meeting in 2020, and is willing to answer questions from the community.
Critics like Russ Tayor are also concerned about pollution from the plant, which will be located at the former Hammermill Paper facility just a few blocks from Lake Erie.
Standing outside the gate, Tayor pointed down the street where his daughter and her family live. Taylor, a retired social studies teacher, is now with the local group Our Water, Our Air, Our Rights.
He worries about traffic at the plant. According to the company, 50 trucks a day will be hauling in plastic waste from hundreds of miles around.
“So that’s the main thing, is becoming a dumping ground for all these other places,” Taylor said.
Erie resident Russ Taylor looks inside an IRG dumpster meant to collect plastic waste for recycling. Photo: Julie Grant / The Allegheny Front
Taylor is also concerned about air pollution. According to the state Department of Environmental Protection, the Erie plant will emit particulate matter, volatile organic compounds and hazardous air pollutants. In August, the agency found technical deficiencies in IRG’s air permit application and is awaiting more information.
Jenny Tompkins, who represents PennFuture in Erie, is also concerned that those tiny pellets made at the plant could be washed into Lake Erie. Her group, along with more than 100 representatives of other groups, signed a letter encouraging the DOE to withdraw the loan guarantee to IRG.
“Erie has basically bought into the smoke and mirrors of plastic recycling. We know that it is not really achievable at scale,” Tompkins said.
PennFuture and the other groups are also concerned about creating plastic feedstock for steelmaking.
“This will perpetuate the use of blast furnaces, which are outdated technology,” Tompkins said. “When we could be investing in new technology that might actually lead to carbon emissions reductions much faster, and overall in the long term, have a much greater and more positive impact on the environment.”
Once the state air permit for IRG is issued, the DOE plans to conduct an environmental assessment of the project before finalizing its loan guarantee. That process includes a public review and comment period.
The groups opposing IRG’s project are pushing the agency to do a more stringent environmental analysis and hold a public hearing.
