A King of Prussia, PA inventor has purchased the former Titus Generating Station in Cumru Township from GenOn for $200,000, according to Berks County records. Joe D’Ascenzo wants to turn the former coal plant into a plastic recycling facility that would take trash and turn it into plastic pellets. He envisions the property around it as a hub for other recycling businesses. It would be the first facility in the United States for ReFined Plastics LLC, according to D’Ascenzo, who is president and chief technology officer of the six-year-old advanced recycling company. D’Ascenzo, a Chester County native and graduate of Ursinus College, has a master’s degree in molecular biology from Drexel University. He helped develop the process, some of which is patented.
Six buildings and 139 acres of the former Titus property on Poplar Neck Road were sold to D’Ascenzo’s Recycle the World Inc., a nonprofit company that says it’s focused on research and development of technologies to decrease, and eventually eliminate, the need for landfills. In March, GenOn conveyed another Titus tract that contains an ash pile to Trogon Development, a company based in Puerto Rico that is a subsidiary of Capexel. Trogon also acquired two retired coal plants in Pennsylvania and three coal ash landfills. Capexel specializes in acquiring brownfields and developing them for reuse.
In April 2020, an environmental covenant, a deed restriction that gives the state Department of Environmental Protection oversight, was placed on the property. D’Asenzo had been negotiating to buy the property for three years but had access to it well before the deal closed. Most recently he had suffered $3 million loss due to damage when vandals attempted to steal copper there. D’Ascenzo estimated the operation will need at least 40 different permits. He expects the process to take two years and $120 million to build.
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Author: Lisa Scheid, Reading Eagle
Image: Reading Eagle