A new facility at the Los Reales Sustainability Campus meant to transform plastic waste into construction-grade building blocks is expected to begin operation in the summer of 2025, Tucson officials say.
The city council is set to receive an update on the progress of the new facility, which is expected to headquarter operations for the city’s recycling program, when it meets Thursday.
Wyoming-based ByFusion uses steam and compression to transform plastic waste into 22-pound construction blocks, called ByBlocks. They fit together with interlocking pegs. Since the material is all superheated, ByFusion can take the discarded food packaging, plastic grocery bags and bubble wrap that standard recycling plants often can’t process.
What started as a pilot program in 2022 by then-Ward 6 councilman Steve Kozachik turned into a multi-year agreement by May 2023, when the City Council unanimously approved a four-year, $1 million contract with the company and made Tucson the first in the world to scale up the program to a city-wide service.
Additionally, the city agreed to construct a production facility at the Los Reales landfill, and according to assistant city manager Elizabeth Morales through a memo prepared ahead of the meeting, the facility is expected to begin operations by next summer .
A goal of the pilot program, which lasted from August 2022 through the end of that year, was to repurpose 20 tons of plastic waste. The Ward 6 office was the only drop-off location to start.
Since January 2023, over 250 tons of non-recyclable plastic waste has been collected through the city’s voluntary drop-off sites, Morales wrote, which now total five after “public enthusiasm” for the program increased; now, council offices of wards 2, 4, and 5, as well as Fire Station 15, at 2002 S. Mission Road, accept drop-offs.
However, the city is collecting more they can handle, and the “imbalance between collection rates and processing capacity” has not been sustainable, she said in the memo. Alternatives like the Hefty ReNew orange bag program, which gives residents another way to participate, were then explored.
“The City’s non-recyclable plastic waste generation averages about 25 tons per month. This amount exceeds ByFusion’s current capacity of 10 tons per month for processing materials from the Tucson market,” which as resulted in a stockpile of non-recyclable plastic at Los Reales, as well as the Friedman recycling facility, Morales said in the memo.
The new facility, which mayor and council are expected to weigh-in on during Thursday’s meeting, is “currently at the 95% design stage,” Morales said. Final designs will be ready for permitting by mid-May, “with the issuance of building permits” expected in July .
Originally expected to cost the city $2.4 million, “The latest construction cost projections available” estimate the facility will now cost Tucson about $2.1 million, Morales said in her memo.
To date, the city has paid ByFusion $165,000 for its efforts. Once the company finished installing its equipment at Los Reales they will receive $85,000.
The remaining $750,000 of the contract, Morales said, will go to ByFusion in payments of $62,500 every three months, over the next three years. In exchange, the city will receive “up to 10%” of its total ByBlock production.
Coinciding with the Climate Action and Adaption Plan, which passed in 2020, committed the city to “achieve carbon neutrality by 2030.” Morales says the city gave itself two goals for this ByFusion partnership: to have 50% of Tucson’s waste diverted by 2030, and to achieve “Zero Waste” by 2050.
