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#VALUE!The Environmental Integrity Project is a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting public health and our natural resources by holding polluters and government agencies accountable under the law, advocating for tough but fair environmental standards, and empowering communities fighting for clean air and clean water.
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Attachment A: Detailed Data about Individual Plastics Plants and Proposed Projects
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Attachment A includes facility-level details for the plastics plants included in EIP's report, "Feeding the Plastics Industrial Complex," available at the link below. See the methods in the report for detailed analysis. This Attachment contains four sheets: 1) a list of existing plastics plants that were built or expanded since 2012; 2) a dataset that contains capacity information for the 50 operating plants included in this analysis; 3) a list of proposed projects and those that are under construction at new or expanding plastics plants; and 4) definitions and acronyms used throughout this document.
Last Updated March 1, 2024.
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"Feeding the Plastics Industrial Complex"Read the full report and detailed methods.
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info@environmentalintegrity.orgContact for more detailed data.
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Notes
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This report relies on state and federal records for 50 plants that manufacture the main chemical ingredients in plastics and that have been built or expanded in the U.S. since 2012. EIP also reviewed the permits and company announcements of proposed new plants and expansions. In terms of the scope of our review, we included in our report’s definition of “plastics plants” the manufacturing of most of the major chemical ingredients in plastic products, but not facilities that shape plastic nurdles into final end-use products, like plastic spoons or toys. For a more detailed discussion of our scope and methodology, see Appendix A.
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Capacity InformationCapacity information was compiled using government records, company websites, fact sheets, press releases, investor presentations, filings made to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and industry trade press, among other sources. Capacity figures are presented in metric tons per year.
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Proposed ProjectsInformation about proposed projects and those that are under construction comes from state permit documents, company press releases, and news sources compiled on oilandgaswatch.org as of November 1, 2023. Where available, we use potential greenhouse gas and criteria air pollutant emissions estimates provided by companies in their Clean Air Act New Source Review permits or permit applications. At expanding plants, these estimates reflect potential allowable emission increases over current permitted levels. At new plants, these estimates reflect the potential allowable emissions. Emissions estimates are presented in short tons per year.
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Reported EmissionsCriteria air pollutant and hazardous air pollutant emissions data are from state air emissions inventories; greenhouse gas emissions data are from EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. Reported emissions are presented in short tons per year or pounds per year and reflect emissions reported for the 2021 calendar year.
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Enforcement and ComplianceEnforcement and compliance data were sourced from the EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance History Online database (ECHO). This analysis is limited to Clean Air Act information as of December 4, 2023. Compliance status, formal enforcement actions, and penalty information were sourced from detailed facility reports. Each report contains quarterly compliance status dating back three years. In this report, quarter one runs from October 2020 to December 2020, and quarter 12 runs from July 2023 to September 2023. Formal enforcement actions and associated federal and state penalty data collected for this report follow the same timespan as compliance status data, October 2020 to September 2023.
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SubsidiesSubsidy information comes from state records, the Associated Press, and research provided by the nonprofit organization Together Louisiana. This report does not include federal subsidies, nor does it attempt to quantify or verify employment promises made by companies that received subsidies. The facilities and projects included in this report may have received additional incentives from other taxpayer-funded government programs.
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Emission EventsEach state has different reporting requirements for unauthorized or unexpected discharges of air pollution. Because of this, event counts and event-related emissions should not be compared between facilities in different states or between states. In Texas, our analysis includes reports that companies filed with the State of Texas Electronic Emissions Reporting System (STEERS) between January 2018 and June 2023. In Louisiana, our analysis includes emergency air incident reports available through the state’s Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) for incidents that occurred between January 2018 and April 2023. For more information on how these events are defined and quantified in this report, as well as data sources and caveats, please see the methodology section in Appendix A.
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Demographic EstimatesEIP estimated demographics around facilities using data from EPA’s Environmental Justice Screening Tool (EJSCREEN) version 2.2 and facility coordinates obtained from government records or EPA’s ECHO database. Where needed, coordinates were adjusted to represent the center of a facility. EIP mapped facility locations using ArcGIS Pro 3.0.2 and generated a three-mile buffer for each facility. For facilities without overlapping buffers—i.e. those that are not within three miles of another facility, based on buffer boundaries— demographic estimates were pulled directly from EPA’s EJSCREEN 2.2. For facilities with overlapping three-mile buffers—i.e. those that are within three miles of one or more facilities—EIP generated a dissolved buffer for each grouping of facilities. EIP generated a shapefile for each grouping and uploaded the shapefile to EJSCREEN to generate demographic estimates.
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