Company that turns plastic into fuel considers locating here
NEW BOSTON, Texas — A New York-based company that produces fuel from plastic waste is considering Texamericas Center as the site for its second facility.
The project by Braven Environmental would be an investment well over $100 million that would create “big jobs,” company co-founder Michael Moreno said to the Gazette.
Moreno said Braven has looked at several sites nationwide and Texamericas appears to be a good fit for its operations, though a final decision on location has yet to be made.
“This does offer from a location perspective a lot of options for us in terms of receiving inputs or sourcing inputs for our process, meaning hard-to-recycle plastics,” Moreno said. “It also gives us pretty good access to the Gulf Coast, which is where most of our customers are, which are the petrochemical companies.”
Hard-to-recycle plastics can include those labeled Nos. 3-7, such as rigid laundry detergent bottles.
Scott Norton, Texamericas CEO and executive director, said the industrial park has been working with Braven for about four years. The collaboration has included helping Braven identify areas at the complex that would place it near the rail system.
Texamericas also has arranged for Braven to meet with various stakeholders, including from Hooks Independent School District, whose taxing district includes the park. They have also discussed the possibility of workforce partnerships with Texarkana College and Texas A&M University-texarkana.
“Everyone in this region has been absolutely wonderful and welcoming,” Norton said to the Gazette.
In March, Bowie County Commissioners Court approved a property tax abatement for the recycler, Norton said.
A large piece of the puzzle is Braven’s application to Texas’ Jobs, Energy, Technology and Innovation program.
“That application has been submitted, and were waiting for it to work through the process,” Norton said.
The JETI program is an agreement between a school district and company that caps the percentage of a company’s appraised property value that can be assessed for a district’s maintenance and operation tax. Norton said since Texamericas Center is designated as a federal Opportunity Zone, the abatement could be 75%.
Norton said receiving the larger tax break could be the difference between Braven’s locating here or elsewhere.
Braven aims to select a site and start construction by the summer. Construction would take fewer than two years and be incremental, Moreno said. The first phase of the project would be to build a facility to hold six units for the company’s proprietary Braven Reactor Train for processing plastics waste, with plans to have up to 24 units.
The company uses pyrolysis, a chemical reaction, to break down waste plastics before converting them into its trademark Braven Pychem. Pychem can be used as an alternative fuel and to produce new plastic products.
According to one report, the next Braven facility could have the capability to process more than 250,000 tons of hard-to-recycle plastics and produce approximately 50 million gallons of Braven Pychem annually.
The process comes with a range of employment possibilities.
“There would be a tremendous amount of job opportunities in terms of everything from engineering down to just workers on the line,” Moreno said.
The size of the complex will depend on various factors.
“We’re working on the engineering as we speak, so I don’t have a square footage set for you. But hopefully we’ll have that shortly,” Moreno said.
Braven Environmental, founded in 2014, is headquartered in Yonkers, New York. It describes itself as providing “a science-backed solution to the global waste plastics problem.”
The company’s sole recycling facility is in Zebulon, North Carolina.