Plastic recycler plans to move ahead with Pa. plant after withdrawing key permit application

• Rachel McDevitt/StateImpact Pennsylvania
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  I report on energy and the environment for StateImpact Pennsylvania at WITF.
  
  My work focuses on responses and solutions to climate change in the state legislature and communities around the state. I trace my interest in these issues back to my time as a Girl Scout and this episode of Rocko’s Modern Life.
  
  I look forward to winter just for the chance to ski a few times each season. I try to keep myself from doom-scrolling on my phone by keeping my hands busy knitting and learning to play the piano.
  
  I grew up in Cambria County, Pa. and graduated from Temple University. I started at WITF just after Christmas in 2014.

 Laura Sullivan / NPR

A wall of plastic trash at Garten Services in Salem, Ore., is headed to the landfill. The vast majority of plastic can't be or won't be recycled.

A rendering of the proposed Point Township Circular Manufacturing Facility. (Courtesy: Encina)

The company behind a new type of plastics recycling plant in central Pennsylvania has withdrawn a key permit application, but says it is still moving forward with the project.

Texas-based Encina plans to build a plant on the Susquehanna River in Point Township, Northumberland County that will break down plastics into chemical building blocks to make new products. It calls the process circular manufacturing.

Encina has a small plant in Texas but the Pennsylvania project would be the first of its kind in scale. The company says the Point Township Circular Manufacturing Facility would process 450,000 tons of plastic each year.

Environmental groups say the process is unproven. They’re concerned about the company’s plans to use water from the river for washing and cooling materials, and to ship chemicals by rail.

“[Downwind] they will have the air impacts and downstream will have the water impacts. And then you have the chemical on the rails. Every community those tracks go through will be at risk,” said Eleanor Breslin, staff attorney with Clean Air Council.

Breslin said it’s not reassuring that Encina is promising to follow all environmental laws and regulations.

“That doesn’t mean that the community and the environment and everybody downstream and upwind will be protected,” Breslin said, noting that microplastics and many types of the forever chemicals PFAS are not regulated.

Encina recently withdrew its permit application for stormwater management, after state regulators said it was deficient.

The company needs the permit to start construction. Spokesperson Alison Jahn said Encina withdrew the application because it could not get an extension from the Department of Environmental Protection.

“Encina is continuing the planning phase of the project which includes detailed site design development and related permitting work. This phase will evaluate and take into account timeline and cost impacts on an ongoing basis,” Jahn said.

This story has been updated to clarify a quote from Eleanor Breslin.

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