"Freepoint Eco-Systems seeks to become a major player in so-called “chemical recycling.” Some residents and environmental advocates are fighting back."

"Belching smoke from a new plastic waste processing plant in central Ohio has stirred opposition to an even larger “chemical recycling” factory planned for Arizona by the same company.

The Freepoint Eco-Systems plant near Hebron, Ohio, fired up its processing kilns for the first time in 2024. Since then, it’s faced multiple citizen complaints about sooty emissions, from black clouds of smoke to flames. Dozens of times, plant operators have bypassed normal pollution controls to vent gases through a flare after upsets in their manufacturing processes, including emergency shutdowns, according to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.

The state regulator has issued four notices of violation to the company, according to an agency database, and launched an enforcement case after the latest one in December.

The Ohio plant’s troubled track record should be a red flag to officials who oversee permitting for the company’s plans for Eloy, Arizona, about 60 miles south of Phoenix on Interstate 10, said Kevin Greene, a pollution-prevention expert who lives in nearby Tucson and retired from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency."

James Bruggers reports for Inside Climate News April 20, 2026. [2]