photo credit: Courtesy of Resynergi
A screenshot from a virtual tour video on the company's website.

A recycling startup is pulling out of Sonoma County after months of public backlash, and violations from the regional air district. 

Resynergi is developing a new kind of microwave-based plastic conversion technology, and the company had planned on expanding its first plant in Rohnert Park. But, after intense community opposition, the company says it’s leaving the site and looking elsewhere. 

Resynergi leaders say they plan to establish over 200 locations across North America. And a facility they had built in Rohnert Park was designed to be the first to employ the new technology that turns used plastic into oil—to make new plastic. 

Now, the company says it's leaving California for a new location, and although a public comment period on whether the company should get regional operating permits is open through October 3, Resynergi co-founder and CEO Brian Bauer says at this point, it’s moot.

“We have zero plans of coming back to this site,” Bauer told KRCB News this week.

The company prides itself on sustainability and accelerating the circular economy by transforming plastic into reusable resources. The process uses microwave energy, which breaks down the chemical bonds in plastic, to turn it into an oil product that can then be recycled into other forms of plastic.

In December of 2024, the company was granted an administrative use permit by the city of Rohnert Park. But it didn’t get the necessary approvals to operate from the Bay Area Air District, tasked with regulating air pollution in the region.

“One of the notices of violation that Resynergi received is because they did put the equipment on site at the Rohnert Park location in advance of getting the authority to construct,” said Meredith Bauer, a deputy executive officer with the Bay Area Air District and presumably no relation to Resynergi CEO Brian Bauer. She says the district issued three separate notices of violation to Resynergi in August. 

“On August 6, the Air District issued a notice of violation to Resynergi’s Rohnert Park site for constructing their continuous accelerated microwave pyrolysis unit without that authority to construct. Then on August 18, the Air District issued a notice of violation to Resynergi’s Santa Rosa site for past intermittent operation of equipment without an authority to construct permit or permit to operate. And this violation was discovered as part of an ongoing investigation into the Rohnert Park facility. Then on August 20, the Air District issued its most recent notice of violation to Resynergi’s 1400 Valley House Drive [Rohnert Park] location, also for past intermittent operation of equipment without an authority to construct or a permit to operate. And we've been keeping an eye on all of these sites, we go by regularly and have seen no indication that any of them are currently operating.”

This summer, the Bay Area Air District sent out a notice to parents or guardians of students at Credo High School, located fewer than 1,000 feet from the 'proposed new source of air pollution.'

Here’s Resynergi’s Brian Bauer again, “we thought we might have some questions or people want to get clear clarification.”

But the community response was much stronger than that.

To date, the Air District received 593 emails, 119 voicemails, as well as a stack of postcards. A petition sent out by local citizens now has over 5,500 signatures. The petition frames the project as a significant local hazard to health and safety, highlighting fears of toxic pollution, lack of community involvement, and procedural shortcuts by authorities.

“There were outside organizations that sent flyers into the neighborhoods. with big, scary pictures of like smokestacks and black smoke coming out, which is as if that's what we were doing,” Bauer said. “And that's nowhere near what it looks like at our site.”

Bauer said the company worked during that period in full transparency, but the public outcry was much larger than their capacity, he says, to convince the community of the safety of the project.

“So we'd have two tours a week, and I would say 99% of the people who came through that were really scared or were against what we were doing, they were for it,” Bauer said. “But we were only affecting 20 to 50 people a week doing that, and there were thousands of people that signed a petition because they saw the scary flyer and didn't really reach out to see what the real information was.”

Yet for the community members of Rohnert Park, this move is a win. Organizers say allowing a plastic chemical material vaporizing pyrolysis facility to operate in residential areas and directly adjacent to a school is a quote “unconscionable act.”

Resynergi’s Bauer said the company plans to lock in its next location within the next fiscal quarter. He says there is a strong likelihood of heading to Texas, Arizona, Nevada or Utah. 

And, he says, he hopes one day to return to California, but this time far away from any schools and neighborhoods.