As the new CEO of PureCycle Technologies, Dustin Olson does not hold back on his view of the company.

"When I look at PureCycle, I see a technology that has an opportunity to fundamentally change the way recycling is done in a way that has never been done before," he said.

It has been less than two months since Olson took over the CEO role from Mike Otworth, who guided the company to the precipice of production at the company's first commercial-scale polypropylene recycling operation in Ironton, Ohio.

Olson, who had been chief operating officer, expects the facility to be complete by the end of the year and push out recycled PP pellets using a unique solvent-based process. Described by PureCycle as a purification process, the company is able to strip away color and odor to create like-new PP.

"When we get this right, it's a fundamental change to the world for, now, you can create a truly circular economy," he said. "I really believe in the technology, and I really believe in the opportunity it brings to the world."

Make no mistake, this is a big bet for PureCycle, which has been working to commercialize the process initially developed by Procter & Gamble Co., the consumer packaged goods company.

Getting to the verge of production, the new CEO said, has not been without challenges. In 2017, PureCycle talked about getting the company's first plant operational by 2020. But funding delays actually pushed the start of construction back to 2020 with a new end-of-2022 time frame for production.

Even with the challenges of COVID-19, global supply chain woes and inflation, the company has been able to keep the project on time. But not without some creativity, Olson said.

"We've held schedule. The challenges are crazy, the supply chain challenges. We had pieces of our plant that were being built in different areas of the world. We had some pieces of our plant that we destroyed in Ukraine. We had lots of supply chain issues that we had to fight through. We had to get creative in some of our solutions," he said.

If certain construction materials could not be secured in a timely fashion, for example, PureCycle looked at how it could tweak plans without endangering the project. "We didn't compromise any safety or engineering or anything like that," he said.

"Those type of moments, day after day after day, have been challenging, hard. It's just hard work. But our team is really good. And they are committed. And they want this to work more than anything. When you have the will to win, you do," he said.

So as PureCycle prepares to begin production by year's end in Ohio, the company also works to begin construction of a second plant in Augusta, Ga.

Olson described the second facility as "nearly a copy-paste" of the Ironton site.

"There's a slight increase in capacity. … We knew the equipment that we needed to get started in Augusta. We've bought it; it's on order," he said.

Otworth had a vision for the company but has given way to those with more operational and polymer experience to now operate PureCycle. He remains a major shareholder in the firm, the new CEO said.

Part of the leadership transition included bringing in Dan Coombs as executive chairman of PureCycle. Coombs has more than 40 years of experience in polymers, petrochemicals and refining, including most recently as an executive vice president with LyondellBasell.

"I view plastic as a very good thing and plastic waste as a very bad thing. If we fix the plastic waste problem, the overall industry and consumer opinion of plastics should improve. It's the best material in the world. And we should not be abandoning it. We should be fixing the problem with it and making it better," said Olson, who also came from LyondellBasell.

"And so when I look at PureCycle, I see a technology that has an opportunity to fundamentally change the way recycling is done in a way that has never been done before," he said.

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