Along the Ohio River in northern West Virginia, the city of Follansbee is at a crossroads. A city with a rich industrial history, its name came from the Follansbee Steel Corporation. A highly polluting plant that heated coal to produce a hotter burning fuel known as coke closed in 2020. It was a mainstay of the city for almost 100 years. Old industry has moved out, and now an “advanced recycling,” a.k.a. chemical recycling, facility is knocking at the door.
TELL CONGRESS: PROTECT OUR FAMILIES FROM PLASTIC INCINERATION POLLUTION
As told to Rachel Meyer by Frank Rocchio:
My entire life up until just a few years ago, I remember driving through the plumes that would billow off the coke plant and come across the street. It was like driving through a cloud, literally driving through the emissions. It’s great not to have that anymore and to not have that smell that’s just drilled into our memories. It’s been a shock to get up in the morning and actually smell fresh air.
I was raised in Follansbee. My wife, Natalie, and I bought a home in my childhood neighborhood, right near my folks. We’re raising our kids here. We did move away for a while, but we made our way back, because it’s home, and there’s no greater sense of community than there is here. It’s all the same people that we grew up with and the same generations of folks. You just don’t get that anywhere else. When I was growing up, there were a ton of kids in the neighborhood. We moved back, and it’s exactly like it was, hundreds of kids in the community, Halloween packed full of kids. That was exactly why I wanted to move home. Our kids really are experiencing that same childhood environment that I grew up in and that we wanted to provide for them.
In 2022, we found out that Empire Diversified Energy proposed a pyrolysis facility here that would burn medical waste to produce low-grade fuel. The process would release health-harming pollutants into the air.
It became apparent to us very quickly how difficult it was to get access to information and understand what was being proposed—and then to put it all together in a very short time frame and be able to articulate reasons why we do or don’t want this to come to our area. We saw there was a need for some on-the-ground community organizing. That was the inception of our nonprofit, Ohio Valley Environmental Advocates. We wanted to be an information hub where we could pull resources, connect with other organizations, and offer input to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Health and Human Resources. We wanted to have points of contact to help streamline the process for people to gather information and, if there are questions, to be able to reach out to subject matter experts whom we’ve connected with, such as Moms Clean Air Force. Our hope is that people would be able to access science-based, factual information to help understand the proposed facility.
Another key factor motivating us to formally put together an organization has been the overwhelming majority of supportive feedback. At the onset, it was a bit nerve-wracking because we grew up here. We’re very close with everybody here, and that could have potentially put us at odds with people we know and love.
Thankfully, that has turned out not to be the case. We’ve had former coke plant workers stand up and say that the plant paid their wages, and they were grateful for that, but they also knew what it was doing to the environment and to our health. They didn’t want to see that come back here. That was a huge motivating factor. We come from a working-class industrial area, but that does not have to be synonymous with one type of industry. You can have hard-working tradesmen, industrial workers pursuing and working in green industrial jobs. Those same skill sets can be transferred and applied. That blue collar mentality does not need to be synonymous with one type of industry.
Due to the significant community opposition to Empire’s initial proposal, the company withdrew their plans for pyrolysis of medical waste. Unfortunately, this was a short-lived win. Empire then shifted their focus to pyrolysis of plastic. Pyrolysis, sometimes referred to as “advanced recycling” within the industry, breaks down plastics using heat. It’s also known as chemical recycling. It is concerning that they now intend to burn plastics here in Follansbee.
Additionally, they plan to include the most dangerous form of plastic, PVC, which is not normally mixed in with other types of plastic for chemical recycling. They say they will use a special technology (used no place else in the country) that enables them to do this. Implementing such an unknown process in our community, close to residential areas, raises concerns about responsibility. The primary issues are the potential impacts on public health. If PVC and other plastics are processed together without well-defined and well-established controls, it may cause increased risk to the health and well-being of our families.
This has all caused a lot of stress in Follansbee. If you listen to any of the city council meetings, you will hear that the city is debating the promise of jobs, but at the same time, there is concern over toxic air pollution and the health of residents. It puts everyone on edge.
Learn more about Moms’ work on “advanced recycling.”
TELL CONGRESS: PROTECT OUR FAMILIES FROM PLASTIC INCINERATION POLLUTION