Hebron, Ohio (June 1, 2026) — On May 28, 2026, the Freepoint pyrolysis incinerator notified the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency that it would suspend so-called “advanced recycling” operations at its facility in Licking County. This announcement came as the Ohio EPA had already issued five Notices of Violation and was actively pursuing enforcement orders to address ongoing and unresolved violations at the facility.
“Finally, the residents of Hebron and Union Township in Licking County are safe. The suspension of operations is the only reasonable response to Freepoint’s repeated and ongoing violations,” says Amanda Rowoldt, Ohio field organizer for Moms Clean Air Force. “Suspending operations will ensure an end to the harmful pollution caused by burning plastic waste, bringing long-overdue relief to nearby families. Children in the community will finally be able to play outside without the threat of breathing dirty, contaminated air. Freepoint’s record in Ohio should serve as a clear warning to communities like Eloy, Arizona, where the company is pursuing a giant plastics incinerator in the midst of an underserved and overburdened community. These toxic enterprises are not a solution to the plastic pollution crisis. Freepoint’s decision to suspend operations must be final and permanent.”
One of Freepoint’s notices of violation was issued after Moms’ Amanda Rowoldt captured footage showing black smoke being released from the facility in 2025. Moms Clean Air Force and partners, including Buckeye Environmental Network, People Over Petro Coalition, and Earthworks, have been working together to demand transparency and accountability from the facility since it started operating.
“Freepoint’s Hebron plastic incinerator was an environmental health disaster that exemplified the reality of the so-called ‘chemical recycling’ industry,” says Cat Adams, petrochemicals organizer for Buckeye Environmental Network. “This shutdown is a win for community members, who have been sounding the alarm about this facility since it first began burning plastic and emitting black smoke. Now, it is critical that Freepoint does the work to actively engage impacted community members in the shutdown process and remediate any environmental harms it caused.”
“This is a victory for the community, which will breathe easier now that this dirty, polluting facility is shut down,” says Cheryl Johncox, regional coordinator with People Over Petro Coalition. “This development is just the latest example of what we already know: that pyrolysis incineration is not a solution to our plastic trash crisis – it’s a risky investment that harms our neighbors, pollutes our air and water, and contributes little to the long-term economic growth that this region deserves.”
“The people of Ohio deserve clean air and good, safe jobs,” says Anaïs Peterson, lead petrochemicals campaigner at Earthworks. “Freepoint’s underregulated plastic burning facility spewed out toxic pollution, endangering residents and workers. Jobs that make you sick or put your kids in danger isn’t opportunity — it’s abuse. This shut down is an opportunity to make sure community leaders step up and advocate for jobs that give Ohio families a healthy future.”
BACKGROUND
For 1.5 years, the Freepoint plastics incinerator has been smothering Hebron, Ohio and surrounding communities with hazardous air pollution. Claiming to recycle plastic, the facility has been burning massive amounts of plastic trash, turning it into hazardous air pollution and hazardous wastes, including a highly contaminated low-grade oily substance called pyrolysis oil.
Since the start of its operations in late 2024, the company has become a serial violator of air pollution laws. The most recent set of violations address elevated emission of particulate matter. These tiny particles can penetrate deep into the lungs and from there into the bloodstream. Exposures are linked to birth defects, lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, dementia, and other illnesses, posing a serious danger to the children and families of Licking County and surrounding areas.
Freepoint’s air permit allowed each of its two pyrolysis incinerators to combust up to 132 tons of plastic waste per day, which is a total of 528,000 lbs of plastic burned each day at the facility. This includes high density polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride, low density polyethylene, polypropylene, and polystyrene. Plastics are extremely toxic, as they are made by combining fossil fuels with mixtures of 16,000 synthetic chemicals. Burning this plastic in pyrolysis incinerators releases potent carcinogens and other toxic chemicals such as dioxins, furans, styrene, PAHs, PCBs, benzene, formaldehyde, PFAS, phthalates, flame retardants, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen chloride, and heavy metals.
Section 129 of the Clean Air Act regulates the extremely dangerous air pollution from solid waste incinerators including pyrolysis incinerators like the Hebron facility. The Act specifies numerical emissions limits for particulate matter, opacity, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen chloride, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, lead, cadmium, mercury, dioxins and dibenzofurans.
Freepoint has continued to violate the law, claiming that it qualifies for “the plastic/rubber recycling” exemption, an obscure loophole that enables facilities to bypass the pollution control, monitoring, and reporting requirements of the Clean Air Act solid waste incinerator rules by claiming that they convert more than 70 percent of the plastic waste, by weight, into chemical plant feedstock and petroleum refinery feedstock, in this case defined as “diesel, gas oil, and naphtha.”
On April 28, the Ohio EPA formally notified Freepoint that their Hebron plastic pyrolysis facility does not actually qualify as a recycling unit because the facility has been violating the terms of its permit for the past three quarters. The Ohio EPA wrote,
“On April 23, 2026, Freepoint notified Ohio EPA that the weight of pyrolysis oil produced and marketed was less than 70% of plastics processed for the third and fourth quarters of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026. This initial production information demonstrates that Freepoint has not met any of the requirements that apply to municipal waste combustion units in 40 CFR Part 60, Subpart AAAA.”
Since it has “not met any of the requirements” of this regulatory loophole, the Freepoint Hebron facility has been operating illegally. While the company asserts that they are exempt from the municipal waste combustion air pollution rules, they do not qualify for the exemption they were claiming. Their continued operations contravene the pollution control requirements of section 129 of the Clean Air Act. Freepoint Hebron meets the statutory definition of a solid waste incineration unit: the facility is “a distinct operating unit of any facility which combusts any solid waste material from commercial or industrial establishments or the general public.” Therefore, Freepoint Hebron must follow the municipal solid waste incinerator rules.
The Ohio EPA gave Freepoint until the end of May to submit a compliance plan that explains how the facility would meet the requirements of 40 CFR Part 60, Subpart AAAA, the Standards of Performance for Small Municipal Waste Combustion Units. In the interim, the facility continued to operate in violation of the Clean Air Act, exposing our children and families to mercury, cadmium, lead, PFAS, dioxins, styrene, and other hazardous chemicals. These pollutants can cause cancer, asthma, and ADHD; disrupt reproduction; and make our endocrine systems go haywire. The quantities released by plastics incinerators are more than ample to make people gravely ill.
On May 28, Freepoint notified the Ohio EPA that it would be suspending operations in Hebron.