By: Patrice Tomcik, Senior National Field Director
Date: April 6, 2026
About: Docket #EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0068-0001
To: Environmental Protection Agency
My name is Patrice Tomcik, and I am the National Field Director for Moms Clean Air Force - a community of 1.6 million parents and caregivers united to protect our children’s health from air pollution and toxic chemicals. I live in Gibsonia, Southwestern Pennsylvania, with my family.
Moms Clean Air Force strongly opposes EPA’s misleading proposal to remove pyrolysis incineration from the Clean Air Act’s Other Solid Waste Incinerators rule.
Let me be clear: this is a bad proposal and a dangerous one. And it was handled by EPA in a way that should concern everyone.
It is deeply troubling that Administrator Zeldin proposed this major policy change in a way that attempted to avoid public attention—burying it within an unrelated rulemaking and making it far less visible to the families and communities who stand to be most affected.
This lack of transparency matters. Because what is being proposed here is the removal of of Clean Air Act protections, with serious consequences for increased air pollution and harm to children’s health.
Let’s be clear about what this proposal does. It attempts to reclassify pyrolysis incinerators so they are no longer regulated under the Clean Air Act. If finalized, pyrolysis incinerators that burn plastic waste could operate without the strict emissions standards, monitoring, and reporting requirements that the Clean Air Act requires.
In other words—this is a free pass to pollute.
We know that pyrolysis incineration of plastic waste releases dioxins, benzene, formaldehyde, and heavy metals like mercury and lead. These are known to cause cancer, harm developing brains and bodies, and damage the lungs and hearts of children, who are uniquely vulnerable to air pollution.
And industry’s deception of calling pyrolysis incineration of plastic waste “advanced recycling” is not fooling Moms. It is not recycling. It is incineration—rebranded to sound clean when in reality it turns plastic waste into toxic air pollution. It is an attempt to make plastic waste disappear from view so industry can try to justify exponential growth in single use plastics while polluting communities.
But across the country, communities are pushing back—and Moms along with partners are supporting them. Communities have organized, testified, and stood up to proposed “advanced recycling” incineration facilities in their neighborhoods. Parents have made it clear: we will not allow the plastics industry to keep putting our children’s lives in danger.
This EPA proposal ignores our voices. For years, industry has sought fewer rules and less oversight. This proposal delivers just that—at the expense of our children’s health.
That is not what the Clean Air Act was designed to do.
The law is clear: Pyrolysis incinerators that burn plastic waste and release hazardous pollution must be regulated under the Clean Air Act. EPA does not get to redefine pyrolysis incineration just because it is convenient or profitable for industry.
EPA should be strengthening and enforcing the protections, not weakening them—and not obscuring major proposed policy changes from the public. We deserve honesty, transparency, and clean air.
Moms Clean Air Force urges EPA to reject this proposal and to ensure that pyrolysis incineration remains fully subject to Clean Air Act solid waste incinerator protections.