For more than two years, some plastics collected and sorted in Louisville’s recycling program were shipped to a controversial “chemical recycling” plant near Hebron, Ohio, which struggled to successfully recycle the plastics it took in ― and coughed up plumes of black smoke and toxic fumes in the process.
The plant, operated by Freepoint Eco-Systems about 25 miles east of Columbus, aimed to use a chemical process called pyrolysis to break down waste plastics into feedstock for new petrochemical products. Louisville’s recycling, which is sorted and processed by a contractor, was one source of the plant’s plastic input, The Courier Journal previously reported.
But the Ohio plant failed to fulfill its promise of plastic recycling. Earlier this year, Freepoint told regulators its plant had fallen short of a required threshold to turn at least 70% of processed plastic into new material for nine consecutive months, spanning the second half of 2025 and first quarter of 2026…