Environmental Groups Urge Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm Not to Use Inflation Reduction Act Money to Promote Plastic Burning
Plastic Not Recycled at Proposed Pennsylvania Facility Would Be Burned in Northwest Indiana Next to the Indiana Dunes National Park
For Immediate Release: August 26, 2024
Contacts:
● Melissa Valliant, Beyond Plastics — melissavalliant@bennington.edu, (410) 829-0726
● Judith Enck, Beyond Plastics – judithenck@bennington.edu, (518) 605-1770
WASHINGTON, D.C. — One hundred and six environmental and community groups submitted a letter to U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, urging her to withdraw the federal agency’s $182.6 million loan guarantee for the International Recycling Group’s (IRG) proposed plastic waste facility in Erie, Pennsylvania, and a steel mill in northwest Indiana. The IRG plant, according to the company’s permit applications, will take plastic waste from a 750-mile radius and send what it doesn’t mechanically recycle to northwest Indiana to be burned.
Although IRG claims it will mechanically recycle the majority of the plastic, most plastic — outside of Nos. 1 (polyethylene terephthalate) and 2 (high-density polyethylene) — does not get recycled due to a lack of markets. What cannot be recycled will be burned at a steel plant.
A portion of the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee — which is from climate funding provided through the Inflation Reduction Act — will pay for the construction of holding silo and an injection tower at a northwest Indiana steel plant that has agreed to purchase the plastics, which will be burned as a replacement for coal-based coke used in the steelmaking process. A Department of Energy letter dated August 1, 2023, named the U.S. Steel Gary Works plant in Gary, Indiana, though the recent DOE announcement did not confirm Gary Works as the recipient of the funds.
Erie, Pennsylvania, and Gary, Indiana, are already overburdened by pollution, and residents of both cities are concerned about the damaging impacts of this federal funding. Lake Erie, Lake Michigan, and Indiana Dunes National Park are adjacent to three steel plants, including Gary Works. Indiana Dunes is the most ecologically diverse area in the state, and unique among national parks, providing habitat for more than 350 migratory bird species and 1,400 plant species. The park is among the busiest on the Great Lakes, with 3 million visitors each year. Toxic pollution from plastic burning, as well as microplastic pollution from managing plastic waste, should not be part of the experience of visiting this treasured park or the Great Lakes.
“Energy Secretary Granholm wants to use the Inflation Reduction Act to back this project that only worsens climate change while simultaneously polluting environmental justice communities,” said Judith Enck, Beyond Plastics president and former EPA regional administrator. “If finalized, this project would make plastics the new coal. IRA money is supposed to be used to improve the environment, not worsen it.”
IRG’s plant will increase truck traffic in the environmental justice community of Erie, Pennsylvania. Residents of Gary, Indiana, or other communities with steel mills that purchase this plastic will be threatened with air pollution and potentially dangerous chemicals from the burning of plastic and its toxic additives. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has designated Gary, Indiana, as an environmental justice community due to the high levels of pollution it already endures.
“This plant will bring unwanted plastic waste from communities within a 750-mile radius to the shores of Lake Erie,” said Russ Taylor, an Erie, Pennsylvania, resident and the chairperson of Our Water, Our Air, Our Rights. “This project will create a dangerous fire risk, microplastic pollution, and 24/7 industrial truck traffic in an environmental justice neighborhood but will provide few benefits to the Erie community. While no plastic burning will happen at the IRG plant in Erie, it will process plastic to burn in another community. DOE should not spend huge sums of climate funding on a plastic-burning economic model that would cement dependence on waste generation for decades to come.”
Plastic production is warming the planet four times faster than air travel, according to a federal government study released in April 2024. In the U.S., plastic is set to outpace coal’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. The plastic pollution crisis and the climate crisis are intrinsically linked, as plastic is made from fossil fuels and contributes to climate change throughout its entire life cycle. Thus, curbing plastic production can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions fueling climate change.
“The DOE is using taxpayer dollars to prop up the production of more plastic, which will then be burned as fuel for steelmaking, and calling it a climate solution,” said Beyond Plastics Appalachia director Jess Conard. “Plastic is not the new coal. The federal government must work to reduce plastic production and focus efforts on long-term strategies for waste reduction. Community-led progress is vital, and there is significant local opposition to this harmful proposal. Together, we can drive meaningful change and protect our environment for the future.”
“As a citizen of Erie, I do not wish to see our city become the dumping ground of all the plastic trash from the Eastern United States. As a plastic pollution researcher, I am troubled by the production of flakes and pellets, which we already know are lost by the millions, less than a mile from Lake Erie,” said Dr. Sherri ”Sam” Mason, an Erie, Pennsylvania, resident and director of Project NePTWNE for Gannon University. “I am saddened that the DOE has seemingly done so little background research into the very real impacts this facility will have not only on my community, which is already overburdened, but also on those living downstream and downwind of these facilities.”
“Burning plastic pellets in the blast furnace iron producing process not only creates a new and untested environmental hazard in steel mill fenceline communities; it also threatens steelworker jobs and the sustainability of the mill itself by delaying investments in newer green technologies,” said Dorreen Carey, president of Gary Advocates for Responsible Development (GARD).
The groups are also circulating a public petition to urge rejection of this project. To sign the petition urging the DOE to withdraw its loan guarantee, visit: https://shorturl.at/LgPai
About Beyond Plastics
Launched in 2019, Beyond Plastics is a nationwide project that pairs the wisdom and experience of environmental policy experts with the energy and creativity of grassroots advocates to build a vibrant and effective movement to end plastic pollution. Using deep policy and advocacy expertise, Beyond Plastics is building a well-informed, effective movement seeking to achieve the institutional, economic, and societal changes needed to save our planet and ourselves, from the negative health, climate, and environmental impacts for the production, usage, and disposal of plastics.
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