Plastics recycling in the U.S. has not fulfilled the promise that many of us had hoped for ten, twenty years ago. For anyone who has ever taken a trip across the ocean the contrast to our current situation is stark. In the European Union and Japan, for example, recycling of plastics is ingrained as an unquestionable responsibility of being a good citizen in their societies, and recovery rates for plastic are 40% to 80%. The U.S. manages a meager 5-9%, depending on U.S. Department of Energy or U.S Environmental Protection Agency figures. There are many reasons for this, but it is not because recycling of plastics is either technically or financially unfeasible. This is the narrative of a conspiracy theory being propagated by individuals with little knowledge of waste management, recycling or the business of supply chain management in general. But with a huge, well-financed agenda behind them.

After 17 years of dedicated work as an environmentalist trying to solve the number one problem with plastics production: pollution, (and not being part of some deep-pocketed Big Oil conspiracy to produce more plastics), I brought my vision to build large-scale mechanical recycling plants to Erie so that we can get on a path to approach the recycling success in Europe and Asia, to the U.S. I was kick-started to develop the IRG plant here in Erie as a result of the enormous generosity and vision of the folks at Erie Insurance, and the Prischak family of Plastek, who recognized the societal need to try to remedy the problem of plastic pollution, and to create living wage manufacturing jobs on Erie’s eastside. 

After the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act by President Biden, which seeded the Department of Energy Loan Programs Office with funds made available to support sustainability infrastructure projects, IRG applied for an LPO loan. The process of applying for one of these loans is an exhaustive, two-year investigation costing millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours of work to prove to the government the beneficial environmental, economic and social impacts of our project to the region and to Erie. If you are not familiar with this program, their 2023 report highlights their mission to stimulate private investment, boost domestic manufacturing, and ensure that America’s energy transition benefits both workers and communities. Tesla is probably the most famous recipient of a loan from this particular program. 

In August of this year, in a huge win for this community, IRG received a conditional loan commitment through the program’s Title 17 Clean Energy Financing Program.

I’ve been working in this city for the past four years to change the course on our country’s failure in plastics recycling. A key advance for recycling is to make it more simple and less confusing. Homeowners should be able to put all plastics in the recycle bin, and our plant will use cutting edge, light ray technology to sort plastic resins 100% by machine. The plant will clean and sell what is recyclable back to manufacturers to replace virgin plastics made from fossil fuels (about 80% of plastics coming to us), and the remaining plastic waste that can’t be turned into marketable resin won’t end up in a landfill. Instead, we’ll use it to replace virgin coal in blast furnaces for iron production. In the oxygen-deprived, 3,200-degree Fahrenheit environment at the bottom of the blast furnace, no harmful emissions, such as dioxins or furans, can form. This isn’t burning, because burning requires oxygen.

Yet, despite the scientific validation and years of hard work by environmentalists, government experts, and community leaders, a faculty member from Vermont’s Bennington College without any science or business credentials to her name—someone I’ve never met, spoken to, and apparently has no first-hand knowledge of our project —has been spreading entirely false and defamatory lies about what it is we intend to do, including in a letter to Secretary of Energy Granholm, that was published in its entirety in the Erie Times.  

In an apparently misguided notion that plastics production is somehow connected with recycling, Ms. Enck’s goal is to stop all development of recycling and to deprive Erie of this groundbreaking technology and the jobs that come with it. 

The idea that recycling is all part of some Big Oil conspiracy is based on the publication in a few media outlets that “exposed” that half a century ago some plastics marketing executives thought it would be keen to point out that plastics can be recycled (they can be, but they largely aren’t in the US due mostly to public policy). The gaslighting aspect of this is the fact that absolutely no one in the history of this planet ever preferred things be made out of plastic because plastic is recyclable. Growth in plastics production has nothing to do with whether it is or isn’t recycled. Two-thirds of everything we will touch in our daily lives is made of plastic because it’s the cheapest, lightest, cleanest, and most formable substance ever invented by mankind. 

So, if we stop trying to improve recycling do we really think we will then stop making our appliances, electronics, clothing, cars, medical equipment, furniture, carpeting, linen, opticals, packaging, and an infinite number of other essential goods, out of plastics? Because we stopped recycling? Really?  

Stopping the IRG project would not only destroy billions of dollars in economic benefits for the region, it would also result in more plastic waste ending up in landfills (benefitting only landfills owned by your waste hauler), and perpetuate our reliance on petrochemical companies to sell more virgin plastic products made from fossil fuels, which are the very products we compete against (specifically, benefitting Big Oil). In fact, if the U.S. could achieve EU recycling rates for plastics, oil companies would lose more than $20 billion annually in revenue. 

We could not help take notice that the author of the anti-IRG letter, someone with no firsthand knowledge of our project but under environmental pretense, seems to take no issue with large donations her employer, Bennington College, has been receiving from the ExxonMobil Foundation and the Shell Oil Foundation. 

Please read to full letter to President Laura Walker of Bennington College here.

IRG will create 221 prevailing wage (union equivalent) jobs. We will continue our youth recycling program and develop a workforce training program for those seeking career advancement. I’ve spent years collaborating with local leaders, including district 2 councilman Andre Horton, and leaders of the Environmental Justice community who actually live in the Environmental Justice community, to ensure that this project doesn’t just make Erie a leader in sustainability but also uplifts those who have been overlooked in the past. 

This project offers a rare triple bottom line: good for jobs, good for the planet, and good for the community.