Pateros launches study of recycled plastics industry

PATEROS – The city council met in special virtual session on March 1 to approve a contract to study Central Washington’s plastics industry. The city received $30,000 in Rural Development Block Grant (RDBG) funds for a feasibility analysis to further research the opportunity to bring a plastics recycling facility here. Councilman Frank Herbert, appointed to replace Christine Perry, took his oath of office just minutes before the session and cast his first official vote on the measure.

“We’ll be surveying industries inside and outside the Pacific Northwest to see what the needs are and to see if we can meet those needs and bring someone in,” said City Administrator Jord Wilson.

When China stopped importing global plastics in 2017 it shut off the spigot on about 700,000 tons annually from the U.S. alone and overnight our plastic recyclables along with newspapers, bottles, and cans had nowhere to go.

Wilson speculated that there could be a market to bring in recycled plastics, make pellets from them, and ship the pellets to manufacturers for use to make product.

“It’s maybe one of the easiest things we can see happening here,” said Wilson. “We’ve got a lot of apple trucks coming in empty; we’ve got rail lines,” he said of the potential for shippers looking to fill empty capacity.

Earlier the city issued a request for proposals to perform the study and received a response from CREA Affiliates, LLC, in Seattle. The city planning committee conducted an interview with CREA and recommended council approval of the consulting group.

Pateros has 16 acres of industrial zoned property on Starr Road that could serve as a processing/storage location for a plastics conversion facility. The area is also where a 30-year-old abandoned dump site is buried and while that portion – about two acres – is off limits for building it can still be used for storage, Wilson said.

“One of the things in our favor especially for this property is that it’s already a landfill,” Wilson said.

CREA was founded by Anindita Mitra described in the company’s website, crea-affiliates.com, as an “architect, planner, urban designer, author, activist, and educator.” The company specializes in “green building practices and sustainable approaches to community planning design…”

According to the five-page Plastics Study submitted by CREA the company will review components such as the city comprehensive plan, Starr Road property regulations, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund Redevelopment Initiative, “and other details pertaining to permitting the redevelopment of Starr Road property.”

CREA will also identify plastic recycling facilities by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), evaluate producers and end users with special emphasis on the Pacific Northwest tree fruit industry, and identify companies that want to expand into the PNW. Toward that end CREA will register two employees for an international conference for plastics recycling and/or remanufacturing companies.