Last spring Shasta Environmental Alliance (SEA) got word that a company called US Waste to Energy (USWTE) was in escrow with the City of Redding to purchase a property in the Stillwater Business Park. USWTE advertises itself as using “green technology” to convert plastic and tires to jet fuel. It sounds “too good to be true,” getting rid of plastic pollution and old tires and converting them to something useful (fuel).
However, several community members contacted SEA with doubts about the veracity of the claim of “green technology” and concerns about potentially harmful environmental impacts to the surrounding residences and the community at large. Thus, SEA, community members, and representatives from other concerned groups began a search for information about USWTE and the processes they use. Internet searches were performed and public record requests (according to the California Public Records Act) were submitted to the Governor’s GoBiz office and California CalRecylce agency.
Briefly, here is what was learned about the process: USWTE proposed to use a process called pyrolysis to break down the plastic and/or tires to produce oil. Pyrolysis is a process of heating a substance to a high temperature in the absence of oxygen, resulting in the breakdown of the components, but not their combustion. In the case of plastics, pyrolysis produces both burnable oil and burnable gases. Those gases would then be burned to provide the electricity input for further pyrolysis and the oil would be sold and burned as jet fuel.
What could go wrong with Plastic to Oil? Such a plant operating in Redding could have several negative environmental impacts that would impact the community:
- Truck traffic would increase: Since Redding is not a large metropolitan area, it could not provide the necessary quantities of waste plastic and old tires nor use the jet fuel produced, thus truck traffic (with its negative environmental impacts—air pollution, noise, greenhouse gas emissions) to bring waste plastic/tires to the plant and transport products out would be extensive.
- Toxic emissions could result: Many plastics and tires contain toxic components, and heating them to high temperatures has the potential to produce even more toxic chemicals—could these possibly be released in the exhaust of the gases burned to produce the heat for pyrolysis? How would it release into the surrounding communities of potentially toxic emissions be prevented?
- Greenhouse gases would be produced: Plastics are made primarily from fossil fuels. Thus, although the company claims its process is “green”, in reality, the majority of the mass of waste plastic ultimately would be converted to carbon dioxide. Add to that the burning of fossil fuels by the required truck traffic and there would be a large carbon footprint.
The public records requests showed that the company was having problems recruiting investors/obtaining loans to fund the construction of the proposed plants. We recently confirmed with the City of Redding that the property has not sold and the City is no longer in escrow with USWTE.
SEA supports the recycling of plastics and recognizes that this is a developing technology. We cannot support the recycling of plastics with an unproven process by a company with no track record that would create much more greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants especially if the resulting oil had to be further reprocessed by transporting it to an oil refinery 200 miles away. Furthermore, research SEA has done about USWTE did not find any similar successful operations by this company.