UPDATE: Snow says firm negotiating Greeley plastics recycling plant is based in Rocky Mountain region
Pyrolysis plant could become first of its kind in Colorado
I got a chance to chat Wednesday afternoon with Benjamin Snow, Greeley’s director of Economic Health and Housing, about the news that an unknown business is in talks to build an $85 million plastics recycling plant on Greeley’s east side, as well as a $12 million municipal waste sorting and transfer facility.
Here are the gaps in what’s known about the project that Snow helped fill in:
The Greeley Urban Renewal Authority Board, which Snow likened to a planning commission with simple recommendation power, voted unanimously to recommend to the Greeley City Council that $1.3 million in Tax Increment Financing funds from the GURA be spent to construct a road and utilities access through the Ironwood Business Park. TIF funds are a form of bond issuance often utilized by local governments for redevelopment.
When that same spending question would reach city council for a public comment period and council’s own vote on the matter hasn’t yet been hammered out.
Snow said the name of the currently unknown entity involved in the negotiations would become public when the question reaches city council. But he did offer a few more insights into the firm:
It’s based in the Rocky Mountain region;
It’s involved in recycling and converting waste into energy;
It’s interested in this site as an “industrial project;”
And the potential location of the pyrolysis plant at least partially had to do with the site’s proximity to transportation infrastructure, in particular the roads network (think U.S. 85 and U.S. 34).
The pyrolysis plant would potentially be the first of its kind in Colorado. At least, Snow said he isn’t aware of any others in existence.
So would this project solve Greeley’s recycling woes? Snow said that’s a tough question to answer.
“Greeley has an issue with local control over waste,” he said. “Right now we sort of have a smattering of private companies that operate outside the city. … So I think it’s helpful toward that. It’s not going to be the be-all, end-all for recycling here, but it does help. It’s a step in the right direction.”
And as for the pyrolysis process itself, Snow pointed to an article published in 2019 in the Frontiers in Energy Research. The article was lead authored by Rashid Miandad of the University of Peshawar in Pakistan.
“Plastics are made of petrochemical hydrocarbons with additives such as flame-retardants, stabilizer and oxidants that make it difficult to bio-degrade (Ma et al., 2017). Plastic waste recycling is carried out in different ways, but in most developing countries, open or landfill disposal is a common practice for plastic waste management (Gandidi et al., 2018). The disposal of plastic waste in landfills provide habitat for insects and rodents that may cause different types of diseases (Alexandra, 2012). Furthermore the cost of transportation, labor and maintenance may increase the cost of recycling projects (Gandidi et al., 2018). In addition, due to rapid urbanization, the land available for landfills, especially in cities, is reducing. Pyrolysis is a common technique used to convert plastic waste into energy, in the form of solid, liquid and gaseous fuels.
Pyrolysis is the thermal degradation of plastic waste at different temperatures (300–900°C), in the absence of oxygen, to produced liquid oil (Rehan et al., 2017). Different kinds of catalysts are used to improve the pyrolysis process of plastic waste overall and to enhance process efficiency. Catalysts have a very critical role in promoting process efficiency, targeting the specific reaction and reducing the process temperature and time (Serrano et al., 2012; Ratnasari et al., 2017).”
“It’s a really interesting project,” Snow said. “And this sort of innovative approach to recycling efforts is, in my opinion, a good, noble thing we should be striving for.”