On August 29, 2025, Freepoint Eco-Systems Hebron quietly sent the Ohio EPA its Initial Compliance Status Report for the distillation unit at the company’s plastic pyrolysis plant in Licking County, Ohio. This is standard practice: the Ohio EPA requires Freepoint Eco-Systems to submit periodic reports to prove that they are complying with environmental standards.
However, in this case, the report proved the opposite: Freepoint Eco-Systems jeopardized public health by violating its operating permit and federal air pollution requirements. The company used unsanctioned pollution control technology to remove volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from emissions from the distillation unit.
On November 4, the Ohio EPA sent Freepoint Eco-Systems Hebron an official notice of violation. To return to compliance, Freepoint Eco-Systems must send the Ohio EPA its plan to meet the requirements of the plant’s operating permit and federal law by December 4, 2025.
In order to minimize the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by the facility, the Ohio EPA requires Freepoint Eco-Systems to vent the gaseous byproducts of the pyrolysis process to vapor combustors, where the gas is burned, destroying most of the VOCs and producing heat energy for the plant in the process. The operating permit makes it abundantly clear: while the distillation unit is operating, these gases must be vented to the vapor combustors at all times.
But when the EPA reviewed the report, they found that Freepoint Eco-Systems had repeatedly violated its permit and vented gas to the flare–not the vapor combustors.
Freepoint Eco-Systems reported 79 separate events between February 12th and June 30th when the company vented the process gas to the flare instead of the vapor combustors. These events spanned from 30 minutes to 59 hours–almost 2 and a half days.
Vapor combustors are a closed vent system, but flaring involves burning waste gases outdoors in an open flame. As a result, flaring is less efficient, and results in more noise and light pollution.
To make matters worse, because this process was not permitted, Freepoint Eco-Systems has not performed the necessary testing, monitoring, and reporting to prove that flaring reduces the plant’s VOC emissions to a safe level. These repeated and significant violations put public health and the environment at risk.
VOC pollution is a serious threat to both indoor and outdoor air quality. Workers exposed to high concentrations of VOCs are at risk of adverse health impacts, including headaches, nausea, and liver, kidney, and central nervous system damage. Some VOCs, like formaldehyde and benzene, are known human carcinogens.
When released into the outside air, VOCs can react with nitrogen oxides to form ground-level ozone, a Criteria Air Pollutant that the US EPA regulates under the Clean Air Act. Ground-level ozone has been linked to respiratory issues such as asthma. And according to the US EPA, even relatively low levels of ground level ozone can cause negative health impacts. Children are at the greatest risk, because their lungs are still developing. Troublingly, 6% of the population within 3 miles of the Hebron plant is under the age of 5, and thus particularly vulnerable to air pollution from the pyrolysis plant.
This isn’t Freepoint-Ecosystems’ first offense, either. The Hebron plant has only been operational for a year, but it has two other air permit violations on its record due to excessive particulate matter emissions.
In spite of these existing issues, Freepoint Eco-Systems announced plans to expand the pyrolysis plant’s polluting activities by launching a pilot project that will “chemically recycle” polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic into petrochemical feedstocks at the Hebron facility. PVC plastic is produced from the highly toxic chemical vinyl chloride–the same chemical that was released into the environment after a train derailment in East Palestine, with devastating consequences.
The new “chemical recycling” technology was developed by Plastic Back, an Israeli company. This pilot project is funded by the Vinyl Institute, a US trade association representing the PVC industry, and the US-Israel Bird Foundation. The plastics and chemical industries are backing chemical recycling, not because it works, but because it provides a greenwashed front for big companies to continue ramping up plastic production.
The fossil fuel industry is also deeply invested in this false solution. Freepoint Eco-Systems sells all of the pyrolysis oil produced by the Hebron plant to to Shell for use in its refining complexes in Pennsylvania and Louisiana, due to a long-term supply contract between the two companies.
The people of Ohio need real solutions to climate change and the plastic pollution crisis, not more speculative technologies that burden vulnerable communities with hazardous air pollution and waste. It’s clear that Freepoint Eco-Systems is incapable of meeting their existing obligations to the community of Hebron. Freepoint Eco-Systems must not be given further license to pollute in Licking County.
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