Date: June 16, 2025
To: Shailesh Patel, P.E.
Environmental Group Manager
Air Quality Program
DEP Northeast Regional Office
2 Public Square
Wilkes-Barre, PA 18701-1915
Dear Environmental Group Manager Patel,
Thank you for this opportunity to comment on Alterra Energy’s proposed air quality permit application for a plastics pyrolysis incineration facility in Sugarloaf Township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.
On behalf of our more than 100,000 members in Pennsylvania, Moms Clean Air Force Pennsylvania is calling on the Pennsylvania DEP to respect our rights to clean air and clean water, and to protect the health of our families before it’s too late. We urge you to deny Alterra Energy’s air quality plan approval application.
Plastics pyrolysis incineration
Alterra claims that “The facility will convert discarded plastic into circular synthetic oil used by the petrochemical industry as a substitute for fossil-derived oil in the manufacturing of new plastic and other valuable products.”
The Alterra application is grounded in misinformation, starting on the very first page. Alterra’s Plan Approval Application of April 18, 2025 presents the Alterra proposal as the construction of a “Plastic Recycling Facility,” a description that is inaccurate and misleading, as the combustion processes proposed have little relation to actual plastics recycling.
Alterra suggests it will be building a thermochemical plastics recycling facility. This will include a stationary reciprocating combustion engine (RICE) with a thermal oxidizer, reactors, extruders, flares, storage tanks, and other equipment. The permit describes the facility as a synthetic minor and an area source, with a miscellaneous NAICS code of 325998. The company claims that a title V operating permit and a New Source Review permit are not applicable.
In practice, what Alterra is proposing is a plastics pyrolysis incinerator. The company seeks to operate it without the applicable air pollution controls required by the Clean Air Act. The company plans to bypass clean air laws by making use of a regulatory loophole that contravenes the Clean Air Act itself. Even if courts were to deem this regulatory exemption permissible, the proposed facility would not actually qualify for the loophole.
Plastics pyrolysis incineration harms human health
Plastics are made by combining fossil fuels with synthetic chemicals. A 2024 report funded by the Norwegian Research Council found more than 16,000 chemicals in plastic, with at least 4,200 presenting significant hazards to human health and the environment.
Incinerating plastic waste—as proposed to take place at Alterra’s Sugarloaf facility— releases hazardous air pollution that harms human health. The pollutants from these so-called “advanced recycling” facilities include dioxins and brominated dioxins, PFAS, plasticizers, chlorinated and brominated flame retardants, benzene, formaldehyde, particulate matter, and heavy metals, such as mercury and arsenic.
The hazardous air pollutants released by Alterra’s proposed incinerator can cause deleterious effects on the health of the people of Luzerne County and surrounding areas. Children are the most vulnerable. Exposure to this pollution increases the risk of cancer, birth defects, reproductive harm, developmental issues, cardiovascular problems, respiratory impairment, hormonal irregularities, and neurological problems.
Alterra is relying on a regulatory provision that contravenes section 129 of the Clean Air Act.
The Clean Air Act implementing regulations for Small and for Large Solid Waste Combustors include exemptions for “pyrolysis/combustion units that are an integrated part of a plastics/rubber recycling unit.” These exemptions conflict with section 129 of the Clean Air Act.
Section 129 defines “solid waste incineration unit” as “any facility which combusts any solid waste material.” As courts have made clear, this section of the Clean Air Act applies to facilities that combust any amount of solid waste material at all. See, e.g., Natural Resources Defense Council v. E.P.A., 489 F.3d 1250 (2007).
It follows that the exemptions for plastic/rubber recycling units are not legally permissible.
While we acknowledge that a state or local permitting process is not the place to challenge the validity of an applicable EPA regulation, we urge the Pennsylvania DEP to avoid resting its permitting justification on such a shaky foundation. Alterra should not be relying on legally suspect exemptions in building its new pyrolysis incinerator.
Alterra acknowledges that the Large Solid Waste Combustor rules apply, but the company then tries to bypass those rules by stating it qualifies for the regulatory plastics/rubber exemption.
The application states that the facility will have a maximum capacity to process 189,216,000 lb/yr of raw plastic material. This is the equivalent of 94,608 US tons (which is more than the 91,250 ton threshold for Small Solid Waste Combustors).
Page 3-2 of Alterra’s proposed air permit application includes, “3.3.1.1 40 CFR 60 Subpart Eb – Standards of Performance for Large Municipal Waste Combustors.”
In this section, Alterra’s proposed permit affirms that “The plastic recycling units (sic) that will be installed at the Pennsylvania Facility will have a processing capacity greater than 250 tons per day.”
Although acknowledging that its Large Municipal Waste Combustor will process more than the 250 tpd threshold of plastic trash, the company is trying to skirt the section-129 Large Municipal Waste Combustor pollution control requirements by claiming that the proposed plastics incineration facility meets the EPA’s exemption for plastics/rubber recycling units.
Alterra does not qualify for the exemption that it is claiming.
Even if the “plastics/rubber recycling unit” exemption were valid, Alterra would not actually be eligible.
EPA’s Large Municipal Waste Combustor rules define the “plastics/rubber recycling unit” as follows:
“Plastics/rubber recycling unit means an integrated processing unit where plastics, rubber, and/or rubber tires are the only feed materials (incidental contaminants may be included in the feed materials) and they are processed into a chemical plant feedstock or petroleum refinery feedstock, where the feedstock is marketed to and used by a chemical plant or petroleum refinery as input feedstock. The combined weight of the chemical plant feedstock and petroleum refinery feedstock produced by the plastics/rubber recycling unit on a calendar quarter basis shall be more than 70 percent of the combined weight of the plastics, rubber, and rubber tires processed by the plastics/rubber recycling unit on a calendar quarter basis.”
[Emphasis added.]
The 70 percent rule presents a high bar. An estimated conversion rate of 1 percent of the plastic waste into new chemical feedstock would be more accurate.
The amount of plastic waste that becomes chemical plant- or petroleum refinery feedstock is bounded by material retention rates and by required dilution with virgin hydrocarbon liquids.
The material retention rate is the amount of recycled material obtained per quantity of incoming postconsumer plastic. A study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory determined that pyrolysis has a 0.1-5.7 percent retention rate. Real-world rates may be higher. At its Baytown, Texas, facility, ExxonMobil’s patent claims that 70 percent of the plastic waste is turned into pyrolysis oil in their flexicoker unit. The pyrolysis oil would then be fed into a steam cracker that has a 37 percent yield rate to olefins, according to independent studies. So the theoretical maximum yield rate would be 70 x 37, or 26 percent. In other words, 26 percent of the waste plastic that goes into the pyrolysis incinerator would later emerge from the steam cracker as ethylene and propylene for making plastics.
But in practice, the burnt-plastic pyrolysis oil has to be diluted before it enters a steam cracker. The pyrolysis oil made from plastic waste is highly contaminated, by definition, because of the so-called “additives” – the chlorides, oxygen, brominated flame retardants, phthalates, and other chemicals that are combined with the fossil hydrocarbons to make plastics. Because the pyrolysis oil is so toxic, acidic, and corrosive -- not just to human health but also to the cracking machinery -- only tiny amounts of this material can be put in the steam cracker. So as not to corrode the steel, destroy the expensive reactor tubes, or deactivate the catalysts in the steam cracker, companies dilute the pyrolysis oil with virgin petrochemical feedstocks. Empirical research suggests that two percent is the maximum amount of pyrolysis oil that can be “cracked” (alongside 98 percent virgin feedstock) to make “advanced recycled” plastic.
So the technical ceiling for “advanced recycled” plastic content is found to be 2 percent, and usually the amount is far less. For example, ExxonMobil is achieving a 0.4 percent “advanced recycled” plastic content rate at their Baytown, Texas facility, with a goal of one day reaching 1 percent across their global facilities.
Alterra’s claimed eligibility for the 70 percent rubber/plastics recycling exemption is highly suspect and deserves further review by the Pennsylvania DEP.
Alterra’s public air permit application leaves gaping holes
Below is a copy of Alterra’s process diagram from the Appendix on page A-2.
The black bar up and down the center of the page is not a typographical error.
It is shocking that Alterra has redacted the fundamentals of its process from the air permit application. This is not acceptable.
Another of the more disquieting redactions is Appendix E, the Confidential Feedstock Guideline and Safety Data Sheets. Alterra leaves the pages blank. Does the company truly think that surrounding communities have no right to this information about safety hazards from this new plastics pyrolysis incinerator in their midst?
We also call attention to the weak and unprotective Leak Detection and Repair program (appendix H), which proposes infrequent and inadequate monitoring and an 80 percent level of control. Moreover, “The first attempt at repair shall be made no later than 30 days after the leak is detected.” When dealing with a facility such as this one that will release formaldehyde, benzene, toluene and other potent carcinogens into the surrounding communities, such leaks and operational deficiencies can have life-altering and life-ending effects.
Chemical recycling facilities do not work
Pyrolysis facilities have a long track record of fires, explosions, technical failures, and economic collapse—in addition to their elevated production of hazardous waste and toxic air pollution. There is no reason to believe that Alterra’s Sugarloaf facility will perform any better. Several of these facilities have closed in recent years due to the lack of economic viability. Simply put, they do not work.
Families in Luzerne County and throughout Pennsylvania deserve protection from the hazardous air pollution released by plastics pyrolysis incinerators. We call on you to deny Alterra Energy's air permit application for its proposed plastics-burning plant in Sugarloaf Township, Luzerne County.
Respectfully submitted,
Rachel Meyer
Ohio River Valley Field Organizer
Moms Clean Air Force
Patrice Tomcik
Senior Field Director
Moms Clean Air Force
Cynthia Palmer
Senior Analyst, Petrochemicals
Moms Clean Air Force