Waste Management shutters plastics-to-oil plantby Bobby Elliott, Plastics Recycling Update
Aug. 7, 2014
A vanguard plastics-to-oil plant is closing its doors, though the corporate giant behind it says the facility will re-open in 2015.
The Waste Management-owned facility in Portland, Oregon had been running for 16 months and, according to company spokeswoman Jackie Lang, achieved "important successes" in its first run.
The technology at work, a system called Generation 5 from Oregon-based Agilyx, aimed to produce oil from processing hard-to-recycle plastics but required "technicians to move materials through a proscriptive, multi-step process that required significant manual labor and a high energy input," according to Lang.
"We have learned what we needed to learn … and it's time now to work with Agilyx to evaluate retrofitting the facility to the Generation 6 technology," Lang added. "We believe Generation 6 could offer greater opportunities for success because it is a continuous system versus a batch process."
That system, according to Lang, will be more cost-efficient, will use less manual labor intensive and will be more energy efficient. With a continuous feed system in place, the company believes it has a better chance to achieve its goals of processing 50 tons of plastics per day and producing 3.5 million gallons of crude oil per year.
"As a technology company, we are constantly innovating and improving, so we see the move to Generation 6 as a natural and positive step," Agilyx's vice president of business development Jon Angin told Plastics Recycling Update. "Waste Management continues to be very supportive as we work together to develop solutions for low value plastics."
Publicly traded Waste Management was one of several investors combining to bring more than $20 million to startup Agilyx in 2011.
For now, the facility will close its doors and lay off 22 workers. Lang would not say whether a new, more automated system would require fewer employees.
Waste Management hopes to have the facility back up and running with Generation 6 technology sometime next year. It is the company's only commercial scale plastics-to-oil facility.
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