By Jim Johnson
SENIOR STAFF REPORTER
Published: October 9, 2014 11:36 am ET
Updated: October 9, 2014 11:44 am ET

Creating a viable waste plastics-to-oil industry in this county could be worth $9 billion annually, according to a new report from the American Chemistry Council.

For years researchers have been working on developing an economical viable plastic-to-oil technology called pyrolysis.

The trade group’s research shows that the United States could support as many of 600 such sites. Those locations, ACC reports, could yield $2.1 billion in annual payroll and another $6.6 billion in capital investment.

“Plastics-to-oil technologies have the potential to create thousands of jobs for skilled workers, contribute billions of dollars to the U.S. economy, cut our carbon emissions, and dramatically reduce the landfilling of a valuable energy source,” said Jon Angin, vice president of business development at Agilyx Corp. and chairman of ACC’s Plastics-to-Oil Technologies Alliance.

Agilyx is developing a new generation of plastics-to-oil technology that the company said will feature continuous automated feeding, internal self-cleaning and sit on a smaller footprint.

The entire plastics-to-oil business could “create upwards of 40,000 domestic jobs,” the ACC believes.

The report, “Economic Impact of Plastics-to-Oil Facilities in the U.S.,” is available athttp://plastics.americanchemistry.com/Stand-Alone-Content/Economic-Impact-of-Plastics-to-Oil-Facilities.pdf.