Plastics

November 21, 2024

Plastics plants dump 1,4-dioxane and other pollutants with no EPA limits

In South Carolina, a plastics manufacturing plant called Alpek Polyester Columbia dumped about 30,000 pounds of a chemical, 1,4-dioxane, into the Congaree River last year, with no limits on the pollutant – a likely carcinogen – in the plant’s discharge permit. The Alpek plant was the largest discharger of 1,4-dioxane among plastics plants in the U.S. last year, releasing a pollutant that EPA last week concluded “poses an unreasonable risk of injury to human health” including in drinking water. But despite this risk, EPA has set no national standards for plastics manufacturing plants to control 1,4-dioxane or several other harmful pollutants, according to a new report by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) called “Plastic’s Toxic River.”

Brendan Gibbons

November 7, 2024

After securing $135 million in tax breaks, pipeline company plans massive ethane “cracker” in Southeast Texas

In Nederland, Texas, pipeline company Energy Transfer is proposing to build a massive new facility that would turn the components of natural gas into the basic chemicals used to make single-use plastics and other petrochemicals. The facility has garnered $134.6 million in tax breaks over 10 years from the local school district, despite being capable of emitting more than 8,500 tons per year of harmful air pollutants and more greenhouse gas emissions than a coal-fired power plant.

Brendan Gibbons

August 1, 2024

Environmental Integrity Project launches updated Oil & Gas Watch database and news site

The Oil & Gas Watch database and news site are being re-launched today (Aug. 1) with new features to make it easier for users to track oil and gas developments in local areas and gather national data on the growing industry. The database features a new “alerts” function to highlight new projects, updates, and public hearings. It also has new search tools; the projected greenhouse gas and related health impacts of projects; new maps; and sharable summary pages for industries. We also redesigned the Oil & Gas Watch News site and email newsletter. We are hosting a free virtual webinar at 1 p.m. Eastern time on Aug. 21 to explain how to use the new database.

Tom Pelton

April 18, 2024

With 34 petrochemical ‘plastics recycling’ plants proposed across U.S., a small PA town fights back -- and wins

Plans to build what would have been the largest petrochemical plant in the U.S. dedicated to breaking down plastic waste into chemicals were cancelled today. The decision by the Encina company came after a town council in Pennsylvania voted unanimously to “strenuously and unequivocally” oppose the company's proposed plant on the banks of the Susquehanna River. The victory by the local community in Northumberland Borough is the latest example of rising opposition to a wave of 34 petrochemical plants proposed across the U.S. that wrap themselves in misleading language about “recycling” plastics.

Brendan Gibbons

April 4, 2024

A new EPA rule is meant to prevent chemical disasters, but safety advocates say loopholes remain

The U.S. experiences a chemical disaster on average once every two days, including at least 45 so far in 2024, according to the nonprofit Coalition to Prevent Chemical Disasters. However, a new safety rule the Biden administration recently released is meant to avoid such catastrophes. Advocates also say EPA should have done more, such as required air monitoring at the fence lines of major facilities and adding ammonium nitrate, an explosive material used in fertilizer, to the hazardous chemical list.

Tom Pelton

March 21, 2024

Texas plastics factory shows how companies take public subsidies while breaking pollution laws

The Formosa Point Comfort plastics manufacturing plant on the Texas Gulf Coast, which makes plastics and other chemicals out of oil and gas, received nearly $69 million in school district tax breaks over a decade. But despite the public support, the plant has routinely violated water and air pollution control laws – without ever losing its subsidies, as a consequence. In a new report, the Environmental Integrity Project examined 50 plastics plants built or expanded in the U.S. since 2012 and found that 64 percent of them received taxpayer subsidies worth a total of almost $9 billion over a decade.

Brendan Gibbons

February 28, 2024

New York is suing Pepsi over oil- and gas-based plastic pollution

When staff from the environmental protection bureau of the New York Attorney General’s office decided to use their authority to address oil- and gas-based-based plastic waste on the Buffalo River, they never intended to go after Pepsi, specifically. But after scientists with the office inventoried piles of trash that volunteers had pulled from the river in western New York, they found that Pepsi’s products made up 17 percent of the plastic waste they found. The lawsuit is the first in the U.S. involving a state suing a company over plastic pollution.

Brendan Gibbons

November 21, 2023

Report calls chemical recycling a ‘dangerous deception’ meant to shield the plastics industry

A new report by the environmental group Beyond Plastics takes aim at chemical plastics recycling. It's a rapidly-spreading industry with 11 facilities operating across the U.S. that turn plastic waste into fuel or raw ingredients for new plastics. At least 31 more of these facilities are now planned. Chemical recycling leads to energy waste and toxic air and water pollution, often in minority neighborhoods and low-income areas already struggling with a heavy industrial presence, the report states.

Brendan Gibbons

October 4, 2023

Startup of Texas plastics plant by ExxonMobil and Saudi Arabia followed by wave of air and water pollution violations

Nearly two years after one of the largest plastics plants ever built in the U.S. began operations north of Corpus Christi, Texas, some residents here say they have seen none of the promised benefits from the plant, which is jointly owned by ExxonMobil and the Saudi Arabian government. However, neighbors have seen the Gulf Coast Growth Ventures plant consume vast amounts of water in a drought-stricken region, suck up a half billion dollars in local tax breaks, and commit 63 air and water pollution violations, according to state records.

Brendan Gibbons

August 15, 2023

In eastern Ohio, environmental justice fight brews over a tires-to-energy plant

A debate over a proposal to convert waste tires to energy is generating a stir in Youngstown, a former steel hub that's still recovering after the decline of the steel industry in the 1970s. The proposal is one of at least 32 new chemical recycling plants proposed across the U.S. that would convert waste products such as tires and plastics into fuel or ingredients for manufacturing new plastics, chemicals, or other products. Almost two thirds of the residents around the Youngstown project are people of color or lower income.

Brendan Gibbons

August 2, 2023

New EPA report: Plastics chemical found in drinking water poses elevated cancer risk

1,4-Dioxane is a colorless liquid with a faint sweet odor used as an industrial solvent, ingredient, and byproduct in the production of plastics and consumer products since the 1950s. The chemical is also found in hydraulic fracturing fluid and at plastic plants that produce polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, a common plastic used to make bottles, food packaging, and clothing. The EPA is accepting public comments on its findings on 1,4-Dioxane until Sept. 8, 2023.

Ari Phillips

July 26, 2023

Factory near Houston would convert garbage into jet fuel. “Green” energy or trash talk?

In Baytown, east of Houston, Fulcrum Bioenergy plans to build facility that converts landfill trash, including single-use plastic, into jet fuel. The company recently opened a similar plant near Reno, Nevada. Proponents see the idea of using garbage to make jet fuel as an environmental win-win and effective way to decarbonize the aviation industry. However, some environmentalists doubt whether the technology is viable and point to the hundreds of tons of air pollution per year the plant would generate.

Lottie Mitchell

May 17, 2023

Biden’s bioplastics move could be a shell game, swapping one polluting plastic for another

President Biden recently issued an executive order with the goal of replacing 90 percent of petroleum-based plastics manufacturing with plastic produced using ingredients like corn or wood. These "bioplastics" do not cause the same environmental harm as fossil fuel plastics, but they do not break down quickly and can persist in the environment. Biden’s order also endorses chemical plastic recycling, which generates huge quantities of toxic waste and hazardous air pollutants.

Brendan Gibbons

April 19, 2023

Texas lawmakers aim to exempt oil & gas projects from school property taxes, but not clean energy

Texas legislators are considering a bill that would give fossil fuel companies – but not clean energy – huge breaks on the property taxes they pay to local school districts, narrowing a previous tax incentive program for energy projects that expired last year. Under the old program, called Chapter 313, almost three quarters of the $12.3 billion in tax benefits went to manufacturing projects, including for the oil and gas and petrochemical industry, while 26 percent went to clean energy projects.

Tom Pelton

March 21, 2023

Opening of new plastics plant brings glowing orange clouds and repeated pollution violations

Residents of a western Pennsylvania county learned that Shell's new plastics plant had begun operating from the orange glowing clouds in the night sky, illuminated by blazing flares. Community concerns about the strange lights and sounds from the new plant, which transforms natural gas into tiny pellets used to make soda bottles and other single-use plastic goods, turned out to be based on more than just appearances. State records show 34 malfunctions at the new Shell Monaca plant, and 14 violations, including for exceeding permitted levels of smog-forming air pollutants.

Brendan Gibbons

December 14, 2022

Mitsubishi seeks tens of millions in Louisiana tax breaks for largest plastics plant of its kind

The more than $1 billion methyl methacrylate plant, which could receive up to $168 million over 10 years in local property tax breaks alone, would emit hundreds of tons per year of air pollution in an area where cancer risk from toxic air pollution is already three times the U.S. average. The company has said its decision to build in Geismar, Louisiana, was influenced by the availability of natural gas, a key ingredient in the manufacturing process.

Alexandra Shaykevich

December 7, 2022

No plastics panacea: chemical recycling causes pollution, promotes waste

Global plastic waste more than doubled from 2000 to 2019 and global plastics production is expected to increase by 40 percent over the next decade, as the fossil fuel industry rushes to build new petrochemical plants that turn fracked gas into plastic. While the public grows increasingly concerned about plastics pollution, the fossil fuel industry and its allies are marketing a false solution: chemical recycling.‍ Despite serious health and safety concerns, states have approved 14 chemical recycling projects across the U.S. since 2016.

Brendan Gibbons

November 8, 2022

How a woman of faith stopped the world's biggest plastics factory

Despite having little money and struggling with the death of close friends to illness in a part of Louisiana known as “Cancer Alley,” Sharon Lavigne has fought tenaciously against Formosa Plastics' “Sunshine Project.” In September, a Louisiana judge ruled in her favor in one of the biggest David vs. Goliath court battles in American history. A woman of strong Catholic faith, Lavigne says the decision to fight wasn’t hers, but God’s.

Courtney Bernhardt

September 20, 2022

Plastics industry boom brings flood of new ethylene “cracker” plants, despite frequent environmental violations

The plastics industry in the U.S. has grown significantly in recent years, including a massive buildout of chemical plants called ethane crackers that turn fracked gas into ethylene -- one of the primary building blocks of plastics and petrochemicals. By the end of 2022, ethylene will be made at 34 facilities in the U.S., up from 27 in 2015. Eighteen of these 34 plants have been designated by EPA as “high priority violators” of the Clean Air Act.

Brendan Gibbons

September 13, 2022

EPA will restore an Obama-era chemical disaster safety rule halted by Trump Administration

The EPA is planning to reinstate a rule meant to prevent fires, leaks, spills, explosions, and other disasters at more than 12,000 facilities nationwide, including many oil and gas and petrochemical plants. The rule was first proposed by the Obama Administration in 2017 and later rolled back in 2019 under the Trump Administration. It would require more facilities to plan for natural disasters and strengthen public notice requirements. But many safety advocates say it does not go far enough.

Brendan Gibbons

August 23, 2022

On the Texas Gulf Coast, a race to build desalination plants to serve a thirsty oil & gas industry

At least six desalination plants are planned around Corpus Christi, Texas, to serve a rising demand for fresh water from a rapidly growing petrochemical industry and planned LNG export terminals. Local residents fighting the desalination plants say believe the projects will hike residents’ water bills to serve a massive industry expansion, while dumping highly concentrated saltwater with heavy metals into local bays and estuaries, threatening marine life. All told, the six desalination plants – if built – could discharge more than 362 million gallons of brine per day.

Tom Pelton

July 14, 2022

Welcome to Oil & Gas Watch News

Greenhouse gases are driving profound changes to the Earth’s climate, contributing to record-breaking heat waves and millions of acres of wildfires, among many other problems. Some industry advocates have tried to position natural gas as a “bridge fuel” to a green future. Oil & Gas Watch News examines the data and public records and sets the record straight.