Families in East Akron, Ohio, face exposure to toxic, cancer-causing chemicals each day from large manufacturing plants, including the Alterra Akron Plastic Recycling Facility and SMB Products Plant. Last fall, residents were able to successfully delay Alterra from obtaining a permit to expand to a second plant, but this is just the first win in a long fight.
As told to Samantha Johnstone by Beth Vild:
I was pregnant with my daughter when Akron Ohio’s SMB Products Plant, which packages aerosol and liquid chemical products for automotive, household, and personal use, caught fire in September 2024. The facility had a small chemical explosion that triggered the release of large amounts of fossil fuel products, including methane, propane, and xylene. Black plumes of smoke extended for more than 45 miles, and all residents within a half-mile radius were evacuated for air quality concerns. A nearby creek became contaminated with ethanol and methanol used to suppress the fire.
Although no lives were lost, residents were put in grave danger through exposure to a multitude of cancer-causing air pollutants. As a mother, a neighbor, a friend, and an Ohioan, I knew what the plastics and petrochemical industry was doing to the residents of East Akron was so deeply wrong.
Tell Congress: Burning Plastic Is Not a Solution to the Plastics Crisis
Turning fear into education and advocacy
As a member of a local nonprofit, The Big Love Network, I began to canvass the neighborhood adjacent to the SMB Products Plant after the explosion, talking to residents in hopes of learning about their experiences and ways they were being continually impacted by the chemical fire. We were also providing educational resources on early signs of childhood asthma and explaining how the explosion made previous air pollution threats worse to ensure residents were well-informed.
I remember going door-to-door while wearing a respirator, reciting statistics from the Ohio EPA on how the community was already facing heightened rates of cancer, birth defects, and infant mortality—and it just felt so surreal.
It wasn’t just that the plant caught fire; the facility releases particulate pollution, a.k.a. soot, and cancer-causing chemicals every day while operating, placing residents in nearby apartment complexes in a constant state of danger. Additionally, the SMB Products Plant is located just a half mile away from the Alterra Akron Plastic Recycling Facility, a polluting “advanced recycling” plastic incinerator. The close proximity of these two facilities meant the SMB fire could have easily triggered a series of explosions at Alterra as well, thus creating up to a three-mile radius of damage.
The danger of so-called “advanced recycling”
Alterra is zoned as an “advanced recycling” facility that does pyrolysis, a high-temperature process that breaks down plastics into its highly toxic chemical components. However, “advanced recycling” is neither recycling nor advanced. It’s just burning plastic.
The incineration of plastics releases harmful pollutants, including dioxins, benzene, formaldehyde, and soot, posing threats of cancer, birth defects, reproductive system damage, and cardiovascular issues. “Advanced recycling” facilities are already unfairly exempted from crucial protections under the Clean Air Act, and Congress is proposing several more exemptions that would allow companies, such as Alterra, to pollute more.
Alterra and SMB Products are located in Summit County, alongside 57 other plastics and petrochemical facilities that released a total of 320,215 pounds of 57 different toxic chemicals into our air in 2022. These facilities are the reason children in Summit County have over 60% more asthma-related emergency department visits and hospitalizations than the rest of Ohio.
When I first read statistics such as these, I cried for nearly two weeks.
Even worse, when I am going door-to-door speaking to residents, these numbers feel much more real. Almost every family in the apartment complexes sandwiched between Alterra and SMB Products have at least one child with asthma, and many have children who have suffered from heart disease or brain aneurysms at young ages.
The chemical industry and Akron’s history of racism
Even more troubling, Black and Hispanic children in Summit County face nearly double the rate of hospital visits than their white counterparts. This is because the petrochemical industry is highly concentrated in East Akron, where a disproportionately high share of Black and lower-income residents live.
This systemic redlining—a discriminatory practice used to effectively force people out of certain neighborhoods by denying mortgages, insurances policies, or school enrollments—goes back to the 1920s. Akron became highly concentrated with Ku Klux Klan members and even had the largest member group in the state. From 1923 to 1925, the Klan gained immense political power as they took over the Akron School Board of Education and implemented a segregated school system, effectively forcing African American residents to move to the eastern side of the city.
Akron’s economy was also rapidly growing in the 1920s, and the city became known as the “Rubber Capital of the World.” Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company was the largest of 24 factories, producing upward of 4 million tires in 1916 alone. Goodyear, along with most of the other factories, was also located in East Akron.
It is no coincidence that the Klan chose to force Black, poor residents into the most polluted area of the city. East Akron became a poor, working-class, racial minority sacrifice zone where industrial factories were able to freely release pollutants. Residents have been trapped in this legacy ever since.
For decades, the rubber industry exposed workers and nearby residents to cancer-causing chemicals in the air and drinking water. Today, many of these facilities continue to operate alongside new deceptive “advanced recycling” smokestacks that further burden residents with health and environmental threats, and we must speak up.
Taking action for clean air
Last year, I wrote one of over 1,100 letters that Moms and others sent to Ohio’s EPA after Alterra applied for a permit to open a second pyrolysis facility in Akron. In August, East Akron had a huge win when Alterra announced they would be withdrawing their permits. Although they cited leasing disagreements, I am confident that our strong public objection still played a key role.
We must continue with this momentum, ensuring the government does not give corporations free passes and hold Alterra and all “advanced recycling” facilities to Clean Air Act standards. Join me to urge Congress to protect our families from these polluting incinerators.
Tell Congress: Burning Plastic Is Not a Solution to the Plastics Crisis