North Tonawanda attorney Terry Burton, representing the company, said the manufacturing process is self-contained and would not generate toxic fumes or carcinogens.

He said the finished products would be made from recycled polyethylene and polypropylene plastic, which “are not hazardous.” And the plant would recycle water for cooling rather than discharging it back into waterways, he added.

But even after the company withdrew its intention to use or produce PVC products, critics still insisted that the project would result in harm to the environment, particularly local shorelines, waterways and fish. That’s because much of the raw material will come in the form of tiny pellets or “nurdles,” that are the size of beads and can fall out of the bags, trucks and trains that transport them.

Burton said the nurdles come in “big sacks” that sit on pallets that are themselves wrapped in plastic. When needed, workers cut the bags and put them into a container with a vacuum that sucks the pellets out into the machine.“I think they’re glossing over some of the other environmental issues that surround this manufacturing process,” said Elizabeth Cute, community engagement manager for Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper. “It will create pollution.”

Sri CV Plastics, which is owned by Varun Kumar Velumani and his family’s Veva Holdings Private Ltd., wants to set up its first U.S. production facility, where it would make plastic utensils and single-use plastic food containers – such as the clear clamshell-shaped containers found at Wegmans or other stores.

The $2.43 million project calls for constructing a 13,870-square-foot manufacturing plant on a 2-acre parcel of vacant industrial land at 1000 IDA Park Drive, which the company would also buy from the Lockport IDA for $60,000. The plant would include 8,500 square feet for manufacturing, 2,000 square feet each for warehouse and research, and 1,000 square feet for office space. Plans called for completion by September 2024.

The facility would initially focus on select sizes of disposable food containers, but it would later double that facility in a second phase. Within two years, the company says, it expects to be producing “a full line” of products, and anticipates creating 20 jobs in three years.

“This is not adding to the plastic load in the area. It’s replacing,” Burton said after the meeting. “These would be good-paying jobs, and they support families.”

But it’s created controversy in the town and among environmentalists, who oppose what they say is a polluting industry that is out of step with the “green” direction that New York State is going. They were particularly critical of the company’s original plan to use and produce polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic pipes or other products, because the chemicals have been linked to cancer and other diseases.

In a letter sent to the IDA this week, 48 organizations noted that the state’s climate plan calls for the elimination of single-use plastic.

“Producing more of these single-use items is completely contrary to the direction our state is moving in,” the letter said. “This is still an immense problem and not worthy of financial support in any way.”

The company dropped the PVC plan, which was a future and secondary element of the project that did not affect the size of the facility or the job count. It also apologized for submitting a document that was unintentionally generated by the ChatGPT artificial intelligence program.

On Thursday, Burton focused on the safety of the injection-molding process that would be used at the plant. “It’s not particularly noisy. It’s heavily automated. There’s nobody wearing masks,” he said. “It’s a contained process. I assume if you stuck your head into the machine, you would smell more, but it’s sealed as much as possible.”

And the cooling system uses a closed-loop to recycle and chill the water, so there is no need for water discharge permit, nor an air permit, he said.

“The risks are if you touch it while it’s melted, you will burn yourself,” he said. “Does warm plastic smell? Probably. Is it toxic fumes? No.”

But Alexis Goldsmith, national organizing director for Beyond Plastics, said “mountains of research” in the past few years have shown that “plastics have thousands of chemicals added to them that are not only carcinogenic” but disruptive to the endocrine, reproductive and other systems in the body.

And she questioned the company’s claim that fumes from plastic production are not harmful. “That’s simply not true. If you can smell it, you’re being exposed. Those are chemical fumes,” she said. “It’s just like the wildfire smoke. If you can smell the smoke, you’re being exposed to particulate matter in the smoke.”

Cute cautioned that the bigger problem comes from the nurdles. “These are littering the Niagara River shoreline, the beaches of our Great Lakes,” she said. “They’re in our drinking water sources. We don’t need more of those items. We need less.”