One of the 11 Constructed Chemical Recycling Facilities in the United States Shuts Down
Oregon Regenyx Facility Closes, Further Exposing Industry’s Deceptive Claim That Chemical Recycling Is a Solution to Plastic Pollution
For Immediate Release: March 6, 2024
Contacts:
Melissa Valliant, Beyond Plastics — MelissaValliant@Bennington.edu, (410) 829-0726
Judith Enck, Beyond Plastics – JudithEnck@Bennington.edu, (518) 605-1770
Chemical recycling company Agilyx on Thursday published a statement announcing that Regenyx — its chemical recycling facility in Tigard, Oregon — was closing. The company entered into a joint venture with Americas Styrenics (AmSty) in 2019. The facility was one of only 11 constructed chemical recycling facilities in the United States, despite the petrochemical and plastics industries’ claims that these processes can potentially manage the nation’s burgeoning plastic waste.
As documented in an October 2023 report by Beyond Plastics and the International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN), many of the 11 U.S. facilities have struggled to create a profitable product. Regenyx opened in 2012 and has failed to prove commercially viable after 12 years. When the facility first launched, Agilyx and AmSty claimed that Regenyx would process up to 10 tons of polystyrene waste per day (3,650 tons per year); Agilyx’s 2021 annual report, however, showed the facility had processed only 4,400 tons during its operation. Beyond Plastics’ and IPEN’s chemical recycling report revealed that Agilyx and AmSty sustained operating losses of $22.4 million in 2020 and 2021. Another chemical recycling plant owned by Agilyx and located in Oregon closed 16 months after its opening.
“The closing of Regenyx is further proof of what Beyond Plastics and IPEN documented in our 2023 report: Chemical recycling has failed for decades, and current operations are failing to produce much material that is recycled into new plastics. There is no evidence that chemical recycling will be capable of diverting and processing a significant amount of plastic waste, and it multiplies the toxicity problems with plastic by creating even more toxic waste that must then be managed. For all of these reasons, chemical recycling will not contribute to resolving the plastics crisis and should be rejected by policymakers,” said Judith Enck, former regional administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and current president of Beyond Plastics. “The plastics and petrochemical industries’ claim that chemical recycling is a panacea to the plastic waste problem is just a distraction from the truth: We can’t avoid plastic’s environmental, climate, human health, and environmental injustice impacts without policymakers forcing companies to reduce the amount of plastic produced and used in the first place.”
Despite Regenyx’s low output, regulators consider the operation a “large quantity generator” of hazardous waste. As the report explained, this so-called “plastic-to-plastic” operation claimed to convert polystyrene (often known as Styrofoam) back into usable styrene feedstock using pyrolysis. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory database, Regenyx produced 211 tons of styrene waste between 2018 and 2022, which was all shipped offsite to be burned.
"Agilyx calling this closure a 'success' is pure spin,” said Jenny Gitlitz, Beyond Plastics’ director of solutions to plastic pollution. “More than 2.2 million tons of polystyrene are landfilled or burned in the U.S. annually, and the U.S. polystyrene recycling rate is a paltry 0.9%. The Tigard venture did virtually nothing to address this large-scale plastics problem. If the venture had been technically or economically successful, the companies would be making good on their 2019 vision of developing a 50-ton-per-day facility on the West Coast. They'd also be developing the same technology to generate recycled monomer at AmSty's existing polystyrene complex in St. James, Louisiana, as they announced in April 2021. That project hasn't moved ahead either."
To view the full Beyond Plastics/IPEN chemical recycling report, visit beyondplastics.org/publications/chemical-recycling
To view Beyond Plastics’ chemical recycling fact sheet, visit beyondplastics.org/fact-sheets/chemical-recycling
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 and promote alternatives to plastics. 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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