Plastics recycler, Resynergi, leaving Rohnert Park and California
Plastics recycling startup leaving California
A controversial chemical plastic recycling company in Sonoma County says it is leaving California for better opportunities in another state.
ROHNERT PARK, Calif. - Resynergi, a highly controversial plastic recycling company in Rohnert Park, has announced it's leaving California for better opportunities in another state.
The company thanked Sonoma County for allowing it to develop its technology. But, the reasons cited for leaving are a menu of things many businesses say make California a hard place to do business.
Nearby residents were pleased to learn that Resynergi is leaving their neighborhood.
"We're all going to be really relieved. It just didn't seem like the right area for it. It's a residential area with a school, you know, two schools, and new houses and kids and stuff and because there's not a lot of knowledge about it, we were all very worried," said Rohnert Park resident Brennon Rogerson.
"No one is against the technology or the goal that the facility has set forward. What we are concerned with is proximity and disclosure and we don't want to be guinea pigs and the test subjects for a new technology," said Keith Barkland, a new Rohnert Park resident.
We asked the mayor about the site.
"This was an integrated mixed-use plan development. That's the new thing that's coming out of Sacramento. You know, they want the jobs next to the houses next to the commercial, live-work-play type of environment, and they want to have these developments right next to mass transit," said Mayor Gerard Guidice of Rohnert Park.
This site checks all the boxes, but too many neighbors would not accept a plastics-to-oil factory. "It was supposed to be zoned for light manufacturing not heavy industrial," said Barkland.
Resynergi's process uses radio waves to turn most plastics into an oil used to make more plastic instead of it being buried in a landfill. It can increase recycling of most plastics from 6% to 60%, without the need to pump more crude oil out of the ground.
Though this technology was born here, the company says it was time for it to move on and out of the state. "Just over time, we've made this system so big and ready to produce lots and lots of oil, in lots of locations. We've basically outgrown this location," said Brian Bauer, Resynergi's CEO.
Citing California's strict regulatory environment, Resynergi is going to states with streamlined permitting to promote growth. "We've seen how much they embrace us and how much they really want to have us come to those states with incentives, tax breaks, the ability to scale the infrastructure, the machinery and ll it take to do this type of thing," said the Resynergi CEO.
Bauer says Resynergi will return to California in a few years with fully operational plants, placed where people want the jobs and to help ease the scourge of discarded plastic polluting land, sea and air.