TUCSON BYFUSION FACILITY GROUNDBREAKING EVENT
City of Tucson Council Member Karin Uhlich, ByFusion CEO Heidi Kujawa, and the Environmental and General Services Department (EGSD) invite you to attend the groundbreaking for the Tucson ByFusion Facility at the Los Reales Sustainability Campus (LRSC). The groundbreaking event will take place as follows:
Wednesday, January 15, 2025 at 2 p.m.
Los Reales Sustainability Campus
5300 E. Los Reales Road
The celebration will include remarks by Council Member Karin Uhlich, ByFusion CEO Heidi Kujawa, and EGSD Director Carlos De La Torre.
Each year, about 400 million tons of new plastic is produced worldwide, with some 40% of that amount intended for single-use purposes. Plastic waste can take hundreds of years to break down into smaller plastic pieces – microplastics – which find their way into our environment and into our foods.
Through its Climate Action and Adaptation Plan – known as Tucson Resilient Together – the City has established goals related to diverting waste from the Los Reales landfill. Diverting waste from landfills for recycling or reuse creates circular and local economic development opportunities that can result in environmental benefits for the community.
Los Angeles-based company ByFusion has developed a unique process for repurposing plastic waste into construction-grade building blocks, called ByBlocks. ByFusion creates ByBlocks without added chemicals or glues, using a proprietary method of steam and compression.
In fall 2022, the City launched a pilot program to evaluate the use of ByBlocks in local public and private projects using hard-to-recycle plastics provided by Tucson residents and businesses. The community enthusiastically supported the program, exceeding the plastic-collection goals set by the City and ByFusion.
Following the successful pilot program, the City and ByFusion entered a Plastic Waste Diversion and Reuse Agreement. The City will build a 10,000 square foot facility at LRSC to ByFusion’s specifications, and the company will install its Landfill Diversion Platform for manufacturing ByBlocks. When operating, the facility will divert up to 200 tons per month of hard-to-recycle plastic from the City’s landfill. The City of Tucson will receive up to 10% of the ByBlocks produced at the facility free of charge for local projects.
For more information:
ByFusion Global, Inc: https://byfusion.com/
City of Tucson’s Hard-to-Recycle Plastics Program: www.tinyurl.com/Tucson-Plastics
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