Ohio-based plastic recycler PureCycle Technologies is out of compliance with requirements of a state wastewater discharge permit, Dina Pierce, public information officer with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, told OPIS.
PCT recycles plastic waste into polypropylene pellets, used in the production of candy bar wrappers, carpeting and other products at its plant in Ironton, located on the Ohio River near the intersection of the Tri-State area of Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia.
The permit covers requirements for how wastewater is treated before it is discharged to a local sewer system.
"PureCycle is not currently in compliance with its wastewater permit, but is working to address the issues to return to compliance," Pierce said Tuesday. "PureCycle has requested additional time from Ohio EPA to address the findings and recommendations." She didn't say if the request was granted and if so how long PCT would have to comply.
The company was cited for 19 "permit limit violations" after a plant inspection on Dec. 22, 2025, according to a "pretreatment compliance inspection report" sent by Ohio EPA to PureCycle on Jan. 27, 2026. The violations were recorded over a period from December 2023 to June 2025.
"An explanation for these exceedances and a 24-hour non-compliance notification for the daily allowance concentration exceedances was not provided to Ohio EPA," the report states.
The report also states that " ... polypropylene pellets were observed on the ground throughout the facility [and] good housekeeping measures for pellet clean up" were not in place.
PureCycle officials listed in the Ohio EPA report didn't respond to calls and emails from OPIS.
Meanwhile, PCT will shut the plant down for about a month in mid-April for maintenance, according to the company's 2025 annual report. The company spokesman wasn't immediately available for comment on the shutdown.
The annual report states that "[PCT] is building product inventory ahead of the outage to avoid interruption to customer shipments during 2Q branded application launches."
The company plans to sell its PureFive resin (in pellet form) to resin distributors, resin converters, compounders and manufacturers of consumer goods, automotive components, textiles, carpets and rugs, as well as food and beverage producers, the annual report states. The report also summarizes the company's overall prospects, and points out that "PCT is a low-revenue early commercial-stage company, and may never achieve or sustain profitability, which depends on the successful commercialization and scale-up of PureFive resin products, and any other products PCT may develop in the future, to scale in the U.S., Europe and beyond ..."
It continues, "PCT currently has no other material lines of business or sources of revenue beyond PureFive resin products, and this lack of diversification may limit its ability to adapt to changing business conditions and could adversely affect its business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects ..."
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-- Reporting by Xavier Cronin, xcronin@opisnet.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 07, 2026 18:53 ET (22:53 GMT)
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