PROVIDENCE – The company behind a controversial medical waste treatment plant proposed for West Warwick is turning to court after its application was denied by state regulators.
MedRecycler-RI, Inc. filed an appeal in Providence County Superior Court in January, contesting the R.I. Department of Environmental Management’s rejection of a permit needed for its project according to court documents obtained by PBN.
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In the Jan. 13 complaint, the company alleges that the DEM’s initial decision was “arbitrary and capricious” and its rationale “concocted…due to substantial public and political pressure and to avoid the specter of litigation.”
The lawsuit marks the latest twist in a years-long battle pitting the company, whose parent company is based in New Jersey, against environmental advocates, local residents and lawmakers.
MedRecycler-RI in 2020 submitted its license application to the DEM, detailing plans to build a medical waste treatment plant on Division Road in West Warwick. Up to 70 tons of blood, needles and other medical human and animal waste would be shipped in daily, shredded, dried and treated at high heat using a process known as pyrolysis, which breaks down the waste into gas that can be burned for electricity.
Because the process does not use oxygen, it avoids the harmful emissions and byproducts from incineration, Nicholas Campanella, MedRecycler CEO, said previously.
But pyrolysis has primarily been used to treat plastic – only one other plant in the U.S. ever used the process for medical waste, but at a smaller scale and it’s unclear whether it still exists.
The proposal drew harsh backlash, including in a multi-hour virtual public hearing in March in which local residents, city and state officials, doctors and environmentalists all voiced concern with what they say is unproven and untested technology with serious health, safety and environmental hazards.
Those concerns, along with a 2021 state law that limits where high-heat medical waste treatment facilities can open, were among the reasons DEM rejected the permit application, according to its July 2021 decision. Weeks later, MedRecycler sought to overturn DEM’s decision through an internal appeal to the agency’s Administrative Adjudication Division.
But the division said “no,” also, explaining in its December 2022 decision that the appeal was “moot” because MedRecycler no longer had a lease on the West Warwick building, or anywhere in the state, for its project.
MedRecycler in the lawsuit is asking the Superior Court to overturn that decision, or at least, make a determination based on the “merits” of the proposal – rather than on technical details like the lease.
The company argues that the state law limiting where these kinds of projects can open does not apply retroactively, and its application was under review before that. It also contends that DEM’s point that the application lacked necessary details is “legally untenable,” since the agency already marked the application complete and did not request additional information from the company during the hearing and deliberation process.
DEM and former director Janet Coit, as well as the DEM’s Administrative Adjudication Division, the town of East Greenwich and New England Institute of Technology are all named as parties to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit comes as state lawmakers consider banning these controversial high-heat waste facilities altogether. (The 2021 law limited them in certain areas such as near schools and designated open spaces.) Companion bills introduced this session by Portsmouth Democrats Rep. Michelle McGaw and Sen. Linda Ujifusa would prevent them anywhere in the state. The legislation has been referred to committees in each chamber, with no hearings scheduled as of Feb. 24.
Michael Resnick, an attorney representing MedRecycler, did not immediately return inquiries for comment Friday. DEM declined to comment.
Nancy Lavin is a PBN staff writer. You may reach her at Lavin@PBN.com.
