Braven Environmental LLC plans to invest nearly $32 million in a pyrolysis plant in Virginia to turn waste plastics into fuels or new plastics, Gov. Ralph Northam's office announced June 2.
Braven plans to build the facility in Cumberland County, about 50 miles west of Richmond. A news release from Northam's office said the $31.7 million project would create 52 jobs.
Braven President and CEO Nick Canosa said in the release that the plant is part of planned U.S. expansions.
"Virginia sees an enormous amount of waste that is either transported long distance for processing or ends up in local landfills," Canosa said. "With this facility, we're looking forward to working hand-in-hand with Cumberland County to address the existing plastic waste issue with proven technology, while bringing long-term jobs to the community."
Neither Northam's release nor Braven's website offered details on the volume of plastic waste to be processed, specific end products of the Cumberland factory or when the project would be operating.
The output from the facility can be used for creating new plastics or as fuel with much lower carbon emissions than traditional oil or gas production, Northam's office said.
Braven's website said its technology can process almost all post-consumer and post-industrial plastics, including film and bags. It said it has a commercial scale operation in North Carolina.
Braven appears to be related to a company Golden Renewable Energy LLC in Yonkers, N.Y.
According to a January 2018 news release from GRE, Canosa was its president and CEO, and a website listed on that release for GRE diverts to Braven Environmental.
That release describes GRE's technology as using "pyrolysis to convert residential, commercial and industrial waste plastics into GRE Renewable Diesel, which is comparable to ASTMD 396, commonly used as home heating or industrial use fuel."
That release announced a round of funding in GRE by the White Plains, N.Y.-based energy investment firm Fortistar, and described GRE as a "waste plastics to energy technology."
Canosa said that GRE planned to build facilities quickly throughout the U.S. and Canada.