{"id":596055,"date":"2026-04-20T18:56:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T18:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/596055\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T18:56:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T18:56:16","slug":"as-a-plastic-waste-plant-violates-pollution-rules-its-owner-makes-the-case-for-a-second-location","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/596055\/","title":{"rendered":"As a Plastic Waste Plant Violates Pollution Rules, Its Owner Makes the Case for a Second Location"},"content":{"rendered":"

Belching smoke from a new plastic waste processing plant in central Ohio has stirred opposition to an even larger \u201cchemical recycling\u201d factory planned for Arizona by the same company.<\/p>\n

The Freepoint Eco-Systems plant near Hebron, Ohio, fired up its processing kilns for the first time in 2024. Since then, it\u2019s faced multiple citizen complaints about sooty emissions, from black clouds of smoke to flames. Dozens of times, plant operators have bypassed normal pollution controls to vent gases through a flare after upsets in their manufacturing processes, including emergency shutdowns, according to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.<\/p>\n

The state regulator has issued four notices of violation to the company, according to an agency database, and launched an enforcement case after the latest one in December.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Ohio plant\u2019s troubled track record should be a red flag to officials who oversee permitting for the company\u2019s plans for Eloy, Arizona, about 60 miles south of Phoenix on Interstate 10, said Kevin Greene, a pollution-prevention expert who lives in nearby Tucson and retired from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another warning should be the industry\u2019s \u201ctroubling\u201d underperformance<\/a> when attempting to use chemical processes to turn mixed plastic waste into fuels or new plastic feedstocks, said Greene.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHow about a six-month pause on this project while they investigate what\u2019s going on in Hebron and take another look at the industry in general?\u201d Greene suggested in an interview with Inside Climate News.<\/p>\n

At least one Eloy city councilmember, Josephine \u201cJoAnne\u201d Galindo, said she\u2019s concerned enough to want to be part of a potential Eloy delegation to visit Ohio, tour the Freepoint plant there and meet with local government and company officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would want to know more,\u201d Galindo said. \u201cI\u2019m always concerned about the safety of my community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Freepoint officials declined a request for an interview on either their Ohio plant\u2019s environmental performance or their proposed Arizona facility.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a written statement, the company said it has \u201cinvited officials from Arizona to tour our Ohio facility to see the sophistication of our operations and the scale of the plastic waste we are working to process. We\u2019re currently scheduling this visit.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Ohio, the company is working with environmental and occupational safety and health officials and the local fire department \u201cto ensure compliance with health, safety and environmental requirements,\u201d the statement said. Freepoint officials, the statement added, \u201chave implemented a number of operational improvements.\u201d<\/p>\n

In February, at public meetings in Arizona, a Freepoint representative put a positive spin on the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get the benefit of being the second mover,\u201d Geof Storey, the company\u2019s chief development officer, told the Pinal County Board of Supervisors. \u201cWe are only going to build this one if the first one works. You are going to get all [the] learnings and all the benefits of that [Ohio] project.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ChildrenChildren play in Hebron\u2019s Evans Park with black smoke emitting from a nearby chemical recycling plant about a mile and a half away in July 2025. Credit: Courtesy of Shawn Jones<\/p>\n

To the Eloy City Council the same week, he added, \u201cWe are still working out some of the kinks.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ohio plant, located about 30 miles east of Columbus near Interstate 70, is designed to process up to 175 million pounds of plastic waste annually. The waste is sourced from plastic packaging companies and community recycling programs throughout the region, including as far away as Louisville, Kentucky.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Freepoint Eco-Systems, a subsidiary of global trading and finance firm Freepoint Commodities, envisions at least a half-dozen facilities in the United States, Storey told Arizona officials. The Eloy facility would collect waste plastic from as far away as California and Colorado, as well as from Phoenix and Tucson, he added. A company PowerPoint presentation said its capacity would be more than twice the Ohio plant\u2019s.<\/p>\n

That would make the Eloy plant one of the largest in the world, said Rita O\u2019Connell, a national organizer with the environmental group Beyond Plastics. But O\u2019Connell also noted that the company\u2019s PowerPoint contains a disclaimer that \u201cthere can be no assurances that information relied upon in preparing this presentation will prove accurate or any of the projections will be realized.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deregulatory Agenda Boosts Chemical Recycling<\/p>\n

Industry officials have advocated for chemical recycling of plastics for years\u2014often under the umbrella term of \u201cadvanced recycling\u201d\u2014as a solution to the global plastic waste crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Typically, that\u2019s done with a technology called pyrolysis<\/a>, the process of decomposing materials at very high temperatures in an oxygen-free environment. Traditional uses range from making tar from timber for wooden ships to transforming coal into coke for steelmaking.<\/p>\n

More recently, major oil companies and small startups alike have sought to develop the technology as an alternative for recycling a wide variety of plastic waste. So far, they\u2019ve been met with limited success and serious pushback from environmental groups viewing it as akin to incineration<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But one of the biggest criticisms is the paucity of plastic waste that pyrolysis actually turns into new plastic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For example, a 2024 lawsuit<\/a> by California Attorney General Rob Bonta\u2014against ExxonMobil\u2019s pyrolysis-based chemical recycling operation at its Baytown complex near Houston\u2014claimed decades of recycling deception contributed to a plastics crisis in California and around the world. In the lawsuit, which is still pending<\/a>, Bonta asserted that no more than 8 percent of the incoming plastic waste to ExxonMobil\u2019s plant is converted to feedstocks for new plastic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The lawsuit claimed the remaining waste becomes fuel, which is subsequently burned.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After the lawsuit was filed, ExxonMobil responded that \u201cadvanced recycling works. To date, we\u2019ve processed more than 60 million pounds of plastic waste into usable raw materials, keeping it out of landfills.\u201d<\/p>\n

The United Nations estimates that the world produces roughly 882 billion pounds of plastic waste each year.<\/p>\n

Freepoint, which also uses pyrolysis, declined to say how much of the waste plastic it takes in becomes new plastic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Storey told Arizona officials its plants divert waste from landfills and offset in-the-ground oil demand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Company officials said 70 percent of incoming plastic waste is converted into something called pyrolysis oil, or pyoil, which is used as a feedstock to create new products. About 25 percent is converted into gas used to heat the kilns. The rest becomes something called char, what Storey described as \u201cblack carbon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Storey said the pyoil gets sent to petrochemical customers on the Gulf Coast. There, company officials said, it serves as a \u201csubstitute for crude oil to create new plastics and other products.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat products our customers manufacture and where they distribute them,\u201d the company said, \u201cis up to our customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The chemical industry has already worked<\/a> to ease regulations on advanced recycling in dozens of states, including Arizona<\/a> and Ohio<\/a>. And in March, after groups of chemical and plastics industry lobbyists visited the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s headquarters, the EPA took<\/a> an initial step to exempt pyrolysis from federal Clean Air Act regulations.<\/p>\n

Beyond Plastics\u2019 O\u2019Connell, who is based in New Mexico, said the chemical industry seems to have accelerated its push for chemical recycling as the Trump administration rolls back a wide range of environmental rules. At least three recycling and chemical regulation bills pending in Congress aim to boost chemical recycling of plastic waste, she said.<\/p>\n

Fewer than 10 chemical recycling plants are operating in the United States, often in a limited capacity, said O\u2019Connell, whose group follow<\/a>s the industry\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n

But Oil and Gas Watch, a petrochemical tracker created by the Environmental Integrity Project, identifies<\/a> about 40 potential new chemical recycling facilities in the works. Some are proposed, some are in the permitting process and some are approved for construction.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the national atmosphere, it\u2019s possible we\u2019re about to see the lights go on on a bunch of these proposals that haven\u2019t moved in a while, because there seems to be a lot of energy in this direction,\u201d O\u2019Connell said. \u201cIt all points to a huge industry push to leverage this Congress and EPA to get chemical recycling rolling nationally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ohio EPA Opens an Enforcement Case<\/p>\n

It was a little more than a year ago when Amanda Rowoldt, an Ohio organizer with the environmental group Moms Clean Air Force, was driving by the Freepoint facility near Hebron and saw black smoke billowing out of the stacks. She took a video and filed a complaint with the Ohio EPA.<\/p>\n

\u201cLong story short, they were found in violation of exceeding their particulate limits,\u201d Rowoldt.<\/p>\n

Numerous pollution incidents followed. A local nonprofit newsroom covering Licking County, The Reporting Project, affiliated with Denison University\u2019s journalism program, took notice.<\/p>\n

Denison is a small private liberal arts college located about 10 miles away in Granville. Doug Swift, who teaches at Denison and is an advisor of The Reporting Project, said a plastics recycling theme in an investigative reporting track resulted in a series of articles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the stories<\/a>, published Feb. 26, revealed the citizen complaints, the state\u2019s violation notices and a 911 call last May from a resident a quarter-mile away reporting \u201ca factory on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a great series to push out into the community, and it did alert some of our most engaged and knowledgeable citizens to the plant and to a technology most didn\u2019t know anything about,\u201d Swift said. He described the Hebron area as something of a local news desert, often ignored by commercial news outlets in the region.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Freepoint Eco-Systems Hebron chemical recycling plant is seen in July 2025. Credit: Courtesy of Shawn Jones<\/p>\n

Hebron Mayor Valerie Mockus said her municipality has no jurisdiction over the plant because it\u2019s located just outside city limits, in an industrial park in Union Township. Still, she said she\u2019s been concerned about environmental incidents there, though she is working to keep an open mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very interested in finding ways to address problems with novel solutions,\u201d Mockus said. \u201cWe have a problem with too much plastic. Is this a way to address that? But I was disappointed to hear about the negative side effects.\u201d<\/p>\n

She described her community as working class, its residents familiar with plumes of evaporated vapor coming from industrial stacks. \u201cWhen it comes out black,\u201d she added, \u201ceverybody pauses.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the company\u2019s air-quality permit from the Ohio EPA, the plant is allowed to emit certain levels of toxic fine particles, volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides, hydrochloric acid, and dioxins<\/a>\u2014pollutants that collectively can damage lungs, cause cancer and create havoc with other bodily systems.<\/p>\n

Ohio EPA\u2019s most recent notice<\/a> in mid-December alleges air-permit violations including excess emissions of particulates<\/a>, a toxic mix that can include soot, smoke and a variety of chemicals. Since then, the agency has opened an enforcement case against the company, said Max Moore, a spokesman for the Ohio EPA.<\/p>\n

This story is funded by readers like you.<\/p>\n

Our nonprofit newsroom provides award-winning climate coverage free of charge and advertising. We rely on donations from readers like you to keep going. Please donate now to support our work.<\/p>\n

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The state agency required the company to conduct emissions testing to get a clearer picture of what\u2019s being released into the air, Moore said. Visible particulate emissions exceeded an opacity limit 18 times from Feb. 1 through March 31, he said. Nitrogen oxides from a test in February also exceeded a permit limit, he added.<\/p>\n

On April 3, an Ohio EPA official chastised Freepoint for repeatedly failing to quickly notify the agency of plant malfunctions, according to an email that Inside Climate News obtained through a public-records request.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis issue has been beaten to death at this point, but we still are not receiving immediate notifications of malfunctions,\u201d the state official wrote, citing an example of a late afternoon March 30 notice to regulators of an early morning March 27 malfunction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it helps, think of it like calling the fire department when there\u2019s a fire,\u201d the official told the company representatives. \u201cThat\u2019s immediate. You wouldn\u2019t wait eight hours or until the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n

A company representative said that afterward, \u201cwe promptly changed our reporting process to ensure it\u2019s in line with their requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ohio EPA\u2019s Moore said the goal \u201cis to get the facility back into compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pollution and Fire Videos<\/p>\n

Cat Adams, a Columbus-based organizer with the Buckeye Environmental Network, said several workers have sought her out to describe unsafe working conditions, including dust, chemical spills and fire hazards. She hears from area residents about the plant, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a group of people in the community who are worried about it, and they want something done,\u201d Adams said.<\/p>\n

Shawn Jones is one of them. He was an eyewitness to the May 27 fire and took a video of it. In subsequent months, he\u2019s kept a close eye, documenting other incidents of billowing smoke. \u201cI\u2019ve probably seen that 15 times,\u201d Jones said, adding that he\u2019s concerned about the health and safety of both people in the community and workers inside the plant.<\/p>\n

He said he\u2019s not sure what, if anything, Ohio EPA officials will do to force the company to comply with environmental regulations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like them to shut the whole place down,\u201d Jones said. \u201cIt\u2019s such a new process. They clearly don\u2019t have it figured out yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hebron, Ohio, resident Shawn Jones took this video in May 2025 of a plastic waste processing plant sending black smoke and flames into the sky. Credit: Courtesy of Shawn Jones<\/p>\n

He said it feels like Freepoint is \u201cdoing sandbox experiments in the backyards of thousands of people. They can, because of the lack of zoning here.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Arizona, Greene, the former Illinois environmental official, said he and an Eloy resident, Ralph Atchue, are asking Pinal County air quality officials to strengthen a permit they issued the company three years ago. The reason they\u2019re citing: the company\u2019s pollution record in Ohio.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Greene also suggests that the city of Eloy should ask for fenceline air-quality monitoring to give the community real-time data on any leaks and equipment failures.<\/p>\n

Noting that the company has essentially described its Ohio plant as a test case, Greene added: \u201cI\u2019d like to know what\u2019s going to be redesigned [for Eloy], or what\u2019s going to be improved. But I also want to make sure there will be the appropriate safeguards in place to ensure that it doesn\u2019t happen in Eloy\u2014and that it doesn\u2019t recur in Hebron.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAbout This Story<\/p>\n

Perhaps you noticed: This story, like all the news we publish, is free to read. That\u2019s because Inside Climate News is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We do not charge a subscription fee, lock our news behind a paywall, or clutter our website with ads. We make our news on climate and the environment freely available to you and anyone who wants it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not all. We also share our news for free with scores of other media organizations around the country. Many of them can\u2019t afford to do environmental journalism of their own. We\u2019ve built bureaus from coast to coast to report local stories, collaborate with local newsrooms and co-publish articles so that this vital work is shared as widely as possible.<\/p>\n

Two of us launched ICN in 2007. Six years later we earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and now we run the oldest and largest dedicated climate newsroom in the nation. We tell the story in all its complexity. We hold polluters accountable. We expose environmental injustice. We debunk misinformation. We scrutinize solutions and inspire action.<\/p>\n

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Thank you,<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"James<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tJames Bruggers\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tReporter, Southeast<\/p>\n

James Bruggers covers the U.S. Southeast, part of Inside Climate News\u2019 National Environment Reporting Network. He previously covered energy and the environment for Louisville\u2019s Courier Journal, where he worked as a correspondent for USA Today and was a member of the USA Today Network environment team. Before moving to Kentucky in 1999, Bruggers worked as a journalist in Montana, Alaska, Washington and California. Bruggers\u2019 work has won numerous recognitions, including best beat reporting, Society of Environmental Journalists, and the National Press Foundation\u2019s Thomas Stokes Award for energy reporting. He served on the board of directors of the SEJ for 13 years, including two years as president. He lives in Louisville with his wife, Christine Bruggers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belching smoke from a new plastic waste processing plant in central Ohio has stirred opposition to an even…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[248316,11455,1017,248320,192,259854,6454,6957,11743,35978,4176,79],"class_list":["post-596055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-advanced-recycling","tag-air-pollution","tag-arizona","tag-chemical-recycling","tag-environment","tag-freepoint-eco-systems","tag-ohio","tag-plastic","tag-plastic-pollution","tag-plastic-recycling","tag-plastics","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}