Photo Courtesy of FDA.gov
On June 16, 2025 Mayor Slutz of Massillon agreed to offer William Ullom, of PolyKinetix, Inc., an economic development grant to provide funds to assist with equipment and relocation expenses1. PolyKinetix is a startup that says it wants to fight plastic pollution by “creating value from waste”2. Significant uncertainties surround PolyKinetix’s operations, particularly due to inconsistencies between the company’s public messaging and the information shared by state and local officials. While the company’s website promotes a “chemical recycling alternative” to landfilling and burning, recent communications suggest the facility will only be pulverizing plastic waste and shipping it offsite — with no clear explanation of where the material goes or how it is ultimately handled.
This lack of clarity raises serious concerns about transparency and accountability. It is confounding that the Mayor and City Council of Massillon would consider awarding a public grant to a company whose actual operations appear to diverge from its marketed claims. At a minimum, more due diligence is warranted before taxpayer funds are allocated to support an enterprise that has yet to fully explain its environmental impact, end-use processes, or community benefit.
PolyKinetix plans to operate around the clock at a leased warehouse at 240 Sixth St. NW, employing up to 12 people. While its messaging invokes bold promises — reducing microplastics and improving human health — the actual operation is a mechanical shredding plant. It appears PolyKinetix will operate a plastic granulator, chopping plastic waste into smaller pieces and presumably shipping it offsite for further processing. PolyKinetix has not disclosed where the shredded plastic will go, how it will be handled, or whether it will be burned, landfilled, or turned into fuels — outcomes that would contradict their green marketing.
Shredding Plastics or Spreading Microplastics?
PolyKinetix’s website claims they provide a novel solution to the mitigation of microplastic and nanoplastic contamination. However, their own operations could directly contribute to these same problems. PolyKinetix sits near the banks of the Tuscarawas River, near a housing development, restaurants, and a community park. Locating a plastic shredding operation in such a mixed-use area raises legitimate concerns about microplastic dust, airborne pollutants, and stormwater runoff that could affect both public health and the surrounding environment. Without full transparency, robust emissions controls, and meaningful community input, placing an industrial plastic processing facility in this setting appears inconsistent not only with the company’s stated environmental goals but also with responsible land use planning.
Shredding plastic through granulation is a well-known source of airborne plastic dust, which can enter the environment, accumulate in lungs, and become embedded in soils and waterways. According to the Ohio River Valley Institute, mechanical handling and chopping of plastics “often generate microplastics and nanoplastics that escape into air, water, and soil — particularly in fenceline communities”3. Without advanced filtration and containment systems, the PolyKinetix facility could become a localized source of microplastic pollution, directly contradicting its environmental claims.
Where Will the Waste Go?
The company has not disclosed what happens after the plastic is shredded. Will it be trucked to a pyrolysis plant for conversion into fuel? Incinerated for energy? Landfilled? Each of these options comes with serious environmental and health risks.
Many so-called “advanced recycling” or “chemical recycling” operations convert plastic into synthetic oil or fuel — which is then burned, releasing greenhouse gases and toxic emissions. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), over 80% of facilities marketed as “chemical recycling” are actually just fuel-making operations that fail to recycle plastics at all4.
Even if PolyKinetix is not conducting chemical processing in Massillon, shipping shredded plastic off site increases the likelihood of spills, contamination, and downstream burning. And without transparency, the public has no way of knowing whether their waste is being recycled — or burned.
PolyKinetix’s website indicates it will turn “non-recyclable plastics and end-of-life tires to petrochemical and lubricant precursors”. The processes to convert plastic waste to petrochemicals involve heating plastic and tires at high temperatures to break them down into oils or gases. Even if no flames are present, the chemical reactions release toxic pollutants, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs), dioxins, furans, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and heavy metals5. These emissions can harm human respiratory systems, cause cancer, and contaminate local air, soil, and water6.
A Public Grant for a Polluting Process?
The City of Massillon has introduced an ordinance to grant taxpayer dollars to PolyKinetix for equipment and relocation expenses. Yet the size of the grant is undisclosed, and the environmental impacts have not been publicly vetted.
Supporting jobs is important but we need to ask: What kind of jobs? And at what cost to our health, air, and water?
Research shows that chemical and plastic waste operations are frequently subsidized with public funds despite being financially risky and environmentally harmful. A 2025 report by the Center for Climate Integrity found that most chemical recycling projects in the U.S. have failed to scale or remain viable without ongoing subsidies7.
Community Health on the Line
Operating 24/7, the PolyKinetix facility sits near the Tuscarawas River, homes, a community park, and small businesses. Plastic dust, VOCs from plastic residues, truck traffic, and noise from industrial granulation could all negatively impact surrounding neighborhoods. In other communities, plastic processing facilities have been linked to asthma, cancer risks, and endocrine disruption from airborne microplastics and chemical byproducts8.
If PolyKinetix is serious about protecting health it should disclose full lifecycle plans for its plastic waste — and invest in local reuse and reduction strategies, not more waste-to-fuel pipelines. What PolyKinetix is doing—processing non-recyclable plastic and tires into petrochemical products—is not clean, not circular, and not transparent. It’s a false solution that delays the systemic changes we need to reduce plastic pollution. Instead of addressing the root of the problem—this model prolongs the life cycle of harmful materials and poses serious risks to people and the planet.
The Bottom Line
PolyKinetix claims it is aligning “purpose with profitability.” But without clarity about where the plastic goes and how it’s processed, the company’s operation looks more like pollution outsourcing than a real solution.
At best, this facility will shred plastics and ship the problem elsewhere. At worst, it could become a local source of microplastic pollution and fossil-fuel-derived emissions — all underwritten by public funds.
Massillon has a choice: invest in real solutions like reuse systems, compostables, and producer accountability — or fall for a familiar false promise wrapped in green marketing.
Citations:
- Massillon City Council, https://massillonohio.gov/wp-content/uploads/June-16-2025-Amended-1.pdf ↩︎
- PolyKinetix website (Accessed June 2025), https://www.polykinetix.com/.
↩︎ - Ohio River Valley Institute (2024), “Chemical Recycling: A False Promise for the Ohio River Valley”. https://ohiorivervalleyinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Chemical-Recycling_-A-False-Promise-for-the-Ohio-River-Valley-FINAL-2.pdf
↩︎ - Natural Resources Defense Council (2025), “More Recycling Lies”. https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/2025-03/More_Recycling_Lies_IB_25-02-A_07_locked.pdf ↩︎
- Beyond Plastics (2023), “Chemical Recycling: A Dangerous Deception”. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5eda91260bbb7e7a4bf528d8/t/674f56482360216cb1c253c0/1733252686279/10-30-23_Chemical-Recycling-Report_web.pdf ↩︎
- Beyond Plastics (2023), “Chemical Recycling: A Dangerous Deception”. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5eda91260bbb7e7a4bf528d8/t/674f56482360216cb1c253c0/1733252686279/10-30-23_Chemical-Recycling-Report_web.pdf
↩︎ - Center for Climate Integrity (2025), “The Fraud of Advanced Recycling”. https://climateintegrity.org/uploads/media/Fraud-of-Advanced-Recycling-2025.pdf
↩︎ - Natural Resources Defense Council (2025), “More Recycling Lies”.
https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/2025-03/More_Recycling_Lies_IB_25-02-A_07_locked.pdf
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