The big International Recycling Group project in Erie, Pa., is still a hot topic, even after it won a conditional commitment for a big federal loan this summer.
Immediately after word of the $182.61 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy Loans Program was announced, opponents started to push back and called on the government to rescind the financing. The DOE loan would cover more than half of the estimated $300 million price tag for the project.
This week the Erie Times-News newspaper published a big package of stories about the IRG project. It includes interviews and opinion columns from both supporters and detractors
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According to the report, CEO Mitch Hecht does not expect the federal government to back out of its commitment. But he is worried that opposition to the project, and negative publicity, could jeopardize his efforts to raise the rest of the funds needed to move forward.
"Investors at Goldman Sachs are going to Google up what's going on," he told the newspaper. "If the first thing they see is a ----show in Erie, nobody is going to want to invest. They are going to take their money and put it into something else."
Hecht said critics at Beyond Plastics and other environmental groups are mischaracterizing IRG’s plans. IRG expects to reprocess 160,000 tons of used mixed plastics each year to capture 100,000 tons of PET, high density polyethylene and polypropylene.
The most controversial part of the project is that other plastics will be diverted to a steel mill in northwest Indiana where they will be used as a partial substitute for coke, a source of carbon needed in the steel-making process.