International Recycling Group (IRG) has received a $182.61 million conditional commitment from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Loans Programs Office for a loan guarantee to help finance the establishment of a large scale mechanical plastics recycling facility in Erie, Pennsylvania, and an injection system tower at a steel manufacturing facility in northwest Indiana.
The facility aims to process 160,000 tons of post-consumer plastics annually, producing 100,000 tons of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), and polypropylene (PP) pellets. IRG will also introduce a novel solution to handle the difficult-to-recycle material by repurposing it into CleanRed™ (CLEAN + REDucing Agent) to be used as an iron-reducing agent in steel production. By virtue of replacing metallurgical coal (a pure carbon) with waste plastic (a hydrocarbon), the plant will substantially cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and avoid landfilling the waste plastic.
IRG has secured an offtake agreement with a northwestern Indiana steel producer for its product, CleanRed™, making IRG the first U.S. company to produce and sell a plastic waste iron-reducing agent to domestic steel manufacturers.
The steel production industry in the U.S. accounts for seven percent of national GHG emissions. Reducing coking coal usage in the ironmaking process with CleanRed™ is expected to avoid up to 550,000 tons of GHG annually. Assuming a 14 percent replacement rate of coking coal used in blast furnaces, there will be a 24 percent reduction in GHG emissions. Recycled plastic production also uses 50 percent less energy than virgin plastic production and avoids emissions from landfilling plastic waste. Plastic production currently accounts for roughly two percent of total U.S. energy consumption.
The project will create 334 construction jobs, including 304 jobs at the Erie plant site and 30 jobs to build the injection system at the steelmaker’s site. The project will also create 221 operations jobs in Erie and northwest Indiana.
Legislation recently enacted in several states requires plastic products and packaging to contain more recycled material, and consumer products companies are responding to meet higher sustainability goals. IRG is expecting its recycling plant in Erie will be only the first of many.
The company says there is more than enough plastic waste to fill up its plant. “Trash haulers limit what’s going into the recycle bin by requiring homeowners to sort by hand, and they further limit what could be recycled by not accepting most types of plastic for recycling,” Hecht said. That’s why we have a low recycling rate compared to other countries, especially in the EU.”
This plant enables trash haulers to collect all the waste plastic material that comes out of homes and have a downstream market for all that material. Once the haulers have large processors like IRG willing to take everything, they’ll collect it all,” he said. “This industry is just getting started.”