Chemours importing GenX from overseas to Bladen County

BLADEN COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — Chemours is shipping GenX from its facility in the Netherlands to its Fayetteville Works site in Bladen County.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality found out about this a year ago and requested more information from Chemours.

However, DEQ says it can not regulate the import of waste that is the responsibility of the EPA.

Chemours says the material was originally created at the Fayetteville Works site for use in the Netherlands.

Their European recycling center went bankrupt, so GenX has to be reimported to be recycled.

DEQ says that all waste, whether imported or generated onsite, are covered under the consent order, which regulates the discharge of GenX in the air and water.

Chemours gave the following statement to WWAY Friday:

“Chemours has historically recycled GenX materials from our Dordrecht facility at our Fayetteville Works plant, as well as at a contractor site in Europe, in order to reduce the quantity that is emitted or becomes waste. This is material that was originally created at the Fayetteville site for use in our Dordrecht production processes.

The recent bankruptcy of our European recycling contractor requires us to take responsible actions to ensure we continue to recycle the vast majority of the GenX. The re-importation of material from Dordrecht for responsible recycle is not something new.

Such requests have previously been made to and approved by the Environmental Protection Agency prior to the re- importation of this material.   The current request for re-importation made to the Environmental Protection Agency allows the transport of materials that had already reached our European contractor for recycle prior to their bankruptcy, to our Fayetteville location for responsible recycling.

If approved by EPA, any air emissions from the recycling process would be directed to the granular activated carbon beds, and the second stage scrubber that are installed at our Fayetteville Works site.  They have proven highly effective at significantly reducing emissions. It’s also important to note that fewer emissions result from recycling material than from making new material.”