Some see ‘misguided' chemical recycling limits in EPA plastics-to-fuels plan

An Environmental Protection Agency proposal to regulate toxins in plastic waste is raising questions about how Washington will oversee chemical recycling, with industry saying EPA is throwing up barriers and others saying it's a welcome — if too weak — move to limit health risks.

At issue is an EPA proposal from June that would regulate pyrolysis facilities that use waste plastic to make naptha and other chemicals for transportation fuels.

The agency's plan seeks to limit carcinogenic and reproductive toxins like PFAS, heavy metals and flame retardants in the scrap plastic feedstock, with the goal of limiting pollutants in the oils and products coming out of pyrolysis facilities.

The proposal only covers plastic waste-to-fuel operations, but plastics groups fear it could set a precedent for other regulations or slow down development of advanced recycling, as the American Chemistry Council and others call chemical recycling processes.

"ACC is concerned that, despite its focus on fuels, the proposed approach could set a misguided precedent which hinders development of advanced recycling projects critical to the increased use of recycled plastics and progress towards a more circular economy," said Lee Salamone, ACC's senior director of its plastics division.

As well, Dow Chemical Co. told the agency that while it doesn't sell fuels, it had similar concerns that regulations could hinder development of advanced recycling, since pyrolysis can also be used to make chemicals for new plastics.

It said advanced recycling is critical to the industry's strategies to diversify its feedstocks and build a circular plastics economy.

"To deliver on our 2030 circular and renewable solutions commitments, advanced recycling along with the refining function, is the most efficient and economic means of activating the circular economy available to the industry today," said Kari Mavian, Dow's global director of regulatory advocacy and policy.

"Therefore, regulations adversely impacting the development of advanced recycling and the refining function will negatively impact progress in the development of the circular ecosystem and the potential to grow American manufacturing and create new jobs," Mavian said.

But some state attorneys general, environmental organizations and community groups living near proposed chemical recycling plants backed the EPA, and in fact urged the agency to strengthen its plan.

For example, several groups opposing a plan by Encina Development Group LLC to build a chemical recycling facility in central Pennsylvania told the EPA they supported its proposal because, if finalized, it could encourage Encina to build a cleaner plant and reduce potential risks to nearby communities.

"The potential protective ripple effects of the proposed [rules] throughout Pennsylvania, and throughout the entire country, may be dramatic and need to be considered as more facilities generating and using feedstock produced from plastic waste are constructed," said the Clean Air Council, Save our Susquehanna and others. "The industry is in its infancy, and several states are actively promoting its development."

Philadelphia-based CAC and its partners pointed to the train derailment and burn-off of a plastics precursor chemical in East Palestine, Ohio, in February, and said Encina plans to ship by rail from the proposed Point Township, Pa., plant, about 55 miles north of Harrisburg.

Cleaner plastic waste feedstocks could reduce potential harm to communities, they said.

"Like many rural communities throughout this Commonwealth that become reluctant hosts for petrochemical facilities, Point Township and its neighboring communities are currently threatened by the development of a new petrochemical process facility that would use post-consumer plastic waste to produce organic chemical feedstock," they said.

A coalition of 15 state attorneys general, including for Maryland, California, New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, urged EPA to make its rules tougher.

They said the agency should place limits on other substances in the plastics waste feedstock beyond what it proposed for regulation in June, and they called for tougher testing to measure pollutants in the plastic.

The AGs also said EPA should do a major study of all additives and impurities present in plastic waste and expand the regulations, which are called Significant New Use Rules, to cover processes beyond pyrolysis.

"EPA should conduct a study to comprehensively evaluate the additives and impurities present in any plastic waste used as feedstock for pyrolysis or other such chemical recycling processes and extend the proposed SNURs as necessary to prevent those additives and impurities from entering the pyrolysis and gasification processes," they said.

The attorneys general said the science around plastic additives is not settled but they argued there's evidence of harm and risk to people.

"A scientific consensus regarding the fate of additives and impurities in the pyrolysis and gasification processes is still being developed, but studies have noted the presence of some additives, like brominated flame retardants, in final pyrolysis products," the AGs said. "Notably, burning plastic-derived fuel can emit ultrafine particles of nickel, lead, and other toxic metals and emits more exhaust than diesel, with a higher sulphuric content than gasoline and diesel."

Industry groups, however, questioned the scientific links EPA was making and said the agency was not following the requirements of the Toxic Substances Control Act.

ACC and others, including chemical recycling firm Brightmark LLC, urged EPA to set safe levels for impurities based on risk, rather than requiring that the plastic waste have zero impurities.

"EPA has not articulated what risks of injury it expects from the use of feedstocks containing listed impurities," ACC said. "EPA should examine the magnitude of those risks in light of the use of the feedstocks in the production of these proposed SNUR substances and adopt a risk-based de minimis level."

The Plastics Industry Association suggested EPA withdraw the SNUR proposal and said that some of the substances it wants to limit in the feedstock, like phthalates, would not survive the high temperatures in pyrolysis or refining and therefore would not expose people.

It said the EPA did not address "by what means and to what extent these impurities reasonably could be expected to survive decomposition in the pyrolysis process, the subsequent petroleum refining process, and the subsequent combustion of the fuels. … Only then could they be a source of exposure to people or release to the environment."

Industry groups said the new EPA proposal shows a disjointed federal approach to regulating chemical recycling, pointing to one EPA office proposing these June rules regulating pyrolysis as chemical manufacturing under TSCA and a second moving to regulate pyrolysis as incineration of solid waste.

"It makes no sense and is counterproductive," Salamone said. "EPA must find a path forward expeditiously to remove impediments and begin working together to achieve the Administration's plastic pollution prevention policy goals."

But EPA said the new rules are part of its larger national strategy released in April to make sure that plastic waste does not have hazardous substances like PFAS, heavy metals and dioxins that become part of new products.

"These substances are known to cause cancer and harm the reproductive system, among other health effects," EPA said in a news release. "The proposed rules follow the agency's commitment in the draft National Strategy to Prevent Plastic Pollution to ensure that feedstocks made from plastic waste do not contain impurities and are part of EPA's overall efforts to reduce plastic pollution."

The EPA rules are an outgrowth of what became a controversial TSCA consent order between EPA and Chevron Corp. giving the company permission to run a trial using pyrolysis to turn waste plastic into oil feedstock for a refinery in Pascagoula, Miss.

The order formed a significant part of the EPA's June proposal, which covers 18 chemicals that Chevron formally asked EPA to let it manufacture from plastic waste, including several grades of naptha, distillates and catalytic cracking gases.

The Chevron order drew concerns from a U.S. senator and a federal lawsuit from a nearby community group over health risks from emissions, but the company said emissions were normal during the short trial and it met regulatory requirements.

In its initial analysis of the Chevron plan, EPA pointed to a one-in-four cancer risk from one chemical in the trial, but the agency later backed away from that, stating that risk had been incorrectly characterized in the order.

But some environmental groups, in an Aug. 2 letter to EPA they submitted in this rulemaking, asked the agency to clarify that, and said the EPA Chevron review did point to other cancer risks.

They also said the consent order clashes with EPA's focus on environmental justice.

"The community in Pascagoula, Miss., is half brown and Black and one-quarter of the population lives in poverty," according to the groups, which include the Environmental Defense Fund and Beyond Plastics.

Dow noted that advanced recycling facilities must meet regulations ensuring their emissions are safe for the environment and human health.

"We also recognize that advanced recycling must not negatively impact under-served communities — no community should bear an adverse environmental or health outcome as the result of industrial operations," Dow said.

EPA said it reviewed and approved the plastics-based feedstocks for the fuels in 2015 and 2019, but said that since then it has learned more and as a result issued the June proposal.

It would require companies to notify EPA if they plan to use plastic waste with any of the chemicals, including arsenic, cadmium, chromium VI, lead, mercury, dioxins, phthalates, organochlorine pesticides and others.

The agency said it also plans to issue similar SNURs for chemicals made using bio-based feedstocks, which prompted Dow to tell EPA it hoped to work with the agency on developing that rule and on the benefits of bio-based feedstocks.