Letter to President Walker
Dear President Walker,
I am writing to bring to your attention a serious issue involving a Bennington College faculty member and senior advisor, who has been recklessly and maliciously spreading disinformation about my company, International Recycling Group (IRG), on behalf of her advocacy group Beyond Plastics, a project of Bennington College.
IRG is proud to be a leader in developing large-scale mechanical plastics recycling plants in the United States. We are close to finalizing $300 million in funding for a plant that will do two things: 1. dramatically increase the amount of material that will be turned back into new products without needing to produce more plastics from fossil fuels, and 2. create a byproduct from hard-to-recycle plastics that will decarbonize the steel industry by developing a less carbon-intensive, and less polluting, substitute for coal in steel production.
The latter process has been successfully used in Japan and the European Union for close to 30 years, leading to significant reductions in plastic pollution and stimulating higher waste capture rates in order to avoid landfill and promote more closed-loop recycling. As an environmentalist, I studied this process and have been endeavoring to bring this technology to the U.S. since I was first made aware of it nearly 20 years ago. In fact, it is one of the most promising solutions for advancing plastics recycling and reducing plastic pollution in our country.
Researchers from the polymer sciences department at Penn State have studied our project extensively and determined that sorting and recycling plastic at our facility would save up to 2,570 kilograms of CO2 per ton of mixed plastic waste. This is because recycled plastic reduces the need to manufacture new, virgin plastic made from fossil fuels. Additionally, the byproduct from our recycling plant (20% of our output) that will go to the steel industry will cut CO2 emissions from iron production by up to 67% when used as a substitute for coke in blast furnaces.
Despite being provided with ample evidence, Judith Enck, a member of your faculty with no science credentials prior to her becoming a political appointee to EPA under the Obama Administration, and with no first-hand knowledge of our operations, has organized a letter in opposition to our project. The letter, the accompanying press release, and an on-line petition in connection with her fundraising campaign, are filled with misleading and entirely false statements about the science involved in our project and the impact on the quality of life in the communities where we will operate, especially Erie.
If Ms. Enck succeeds in damaging this effort, on which a large team of environmentalists, federal and state environmental control and energy emissions experts, and community leaders have toiled for many years and expended many millions of dollars in research and development, her actions would not only destroy several billion dollars in economic benefit to the regions involved, it would increase the amount of waste sent to landfills, thereby boosting the profits of waste management companies that own these landfills. Moreover, her efforts would ensure that Big Oil continues to sell more virgin plastic products made from fossil fuels, which our recycling efforts aim to replace.
We were surprised to discover that the ExxonMobil Foundation was a major contributor to Bennington College for FY 2017– the year immediately prior to Beyond Plastics being created. In fact, both ExxonMobil Foundation and Shell Oil Foundation have been Bennington College donors as recently as FY 2023. Ms. Enck, supposedly an avowed anti-plastics crusader, has never disclosed that Bennington was funded by the petrochemical industry.
Again, we need to emphasize that Beyond Plastics’ malicious and economically damaging attacks undermining our project, and society’s belief in recycling, only serves one major industry: Big Oil. Because recycled plastic material cuts into the amount of virgin plastic they can produce and sell, successful growth of recycling to the levels found in the EU and Asia threatens many billions of dollars in revenues to ExxonMobil and Shell. In fact, if the US were able to achieve EU recycling rates, by our estimates the oil companies would lose over $20 billion a year in revenues. The oil industry has every incentive to impede, slow down and even reverse recycling in this country.
Below, I have outlined the main falsehoods that Judith Enck is presenting on behalf of Bennington College, which are aimed at damaging our business financially, our region economically and hindering the growth of recycling in the U.S.
Claim: IRG wants to burn plastic.
Truth: A small portion of waste plastic from our plant that cannot be turned into marketable recycled resin (less than 20%) will be diverted from being needlessly buried in a landfill. This material will instead become a byproduct that will replace mined virgin coal in a blast furnace for iron production. In the heel, or bottom, of a blast furnace the atmosphere is oxygen-deprived and 3,200 degrees Fahrenheit. In such an environment no carcinogenic emissions, such as dioxins and furans, can exist. It is not burning. Burning requires oxygen. The volatilization in the blast furnace of waste plastic material as an iron reduction agent is not only safe (it has been sound environmental practice in the European Union and Japan for three decades), it dramatically reduces greenhouse gas emissions by replacing coal (a pure carbon) with plastic (a hydrocarbon).
The other 80% of the material IRG will be reprocessing will become plastic pellets that are sold to packaging companies and end-users as a replacement for plastic that would otherwise be made by petrochemical companies from fossil fuels.
Claim: 400 diesel trucks per day will be polluting the communities in Erie.
Truth: As the insert below shows, this false claim in the on-line petition being used for Enck’s fundraising came from a presentation with a glaring arithmetic mistake which was never retracted. This plant will use approximately 2 tractor trailers per hour during a 24-hour production cycle, resulting in 50 trucks per day on a road that is industry-heavy. The plant will produce far less traffic than most retail outlets that might otherwise be at the site
Claim: The project will create ‘toxic pollution’ and ‘microplastics’ that will impede the experience at Indiana Dunes National Park.
Truth: The plastic injection system will be located next to a blast furnace within a 4,000-acre steel production complex that has been making steel continuously on the site for over one hundred years. There is no scientific basis for the claim that this process will increase particulate matter emissions that are regularly monitored at this facility by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and no explanation as to how microplastics would escape from the fully-enclosed delivery system and “impede the park experience.”
Claim: There is substantial fire risk.
Truth: This is a manufacturing plant. Unlike Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs), recycling scrap yards, transfer stations and warehouses, there is no history of catastrophic fires at plastic mechanical recycling facilities that is any greater than other light manufacturing. In addition, sophisticated heat-sensing infrared fire detection and suppression systems are standard in modern processing plants.
Claim: The project will provide few benefits to the Erie community
Truth: It is important to note that the vast majority of Erie supports this project, including its academic scientists, virtually every elected official, labor unions, and Environmental Justice community leaders. The Erie IRG project has received robust support for the enormous benefits in bringing jobs and environmental benefits to one of the poorest communities in America. The following have expressed it in writing and we’re happy to share these upon request:
US Senator John Fetterman (D)
US Senator Bob Casey (D)
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf (D)
The Erie Chapter of the NAACP (Gary Horton)
Erie County Redevelopment Authority
Penn State University Behrend (Erie Campus) Chancellor Ralph Ford
Great Lakes Building & Construction Trades Council
Urban Erie Community Development Corporation
Allegheny County Labor Council
Erie County Councilman District Two Andre Horton (D)
Erie State Rep Patrick Harkins (D)
Erie State Rep Bob Merski (D)
Erie State Rep Ryan Bizzarro (D)
Erie Mayor Joe Schember (D)
Claim: 106 environmental and community groups have signed Ms. Enck’s letter to Secretary Granholm.
Truth: Actually, only 10 groups signed Judith Enck’s letter. The other signatories are multiple individuals all from the same group, coalition, or religious order, or are organizations for which there is no 501(c)(3) filing or even a functioning website. Of the 10 “environmental and community groups”, examples include Elaine Products, a for-profit hair/skincare business, and Meliora Cleaning Products.
We are respectfully requesting an immediate retraction of Judith Enck’s letter, and further for you to direct Judith Enck and her Beyond Plastics colleagues to cease and desist their disinformation campaign.
Sincerely,
Mitch Hecht
Chief Executive Officer