Untitled Texas Attorney General Opinion: KP-0508

January 23, 2026

The Honorable Ashley Cain Land
Chambers County Attorney
Post Office Box 1200
Anahuac, Texas 77514

Opinion No. KP-0508

Re: Whether “advanced recycling facilities” engage in “recycling” under Texas law
(RQ-0602-KP)

Dear Ms. Land:

You ask “whether ‘advanced recycling facilities’ engage in ‘recycling’ under Texas law.” 1
As background, you tell us that Chambers County recently entered into an agreement with
ExxonMobil “to reduce plastic waste in the County, create a cleaner environment, and support a
more circular economy for plastics.” Request Letter at 2. This agreement involves the performance
of advanced recycling via a process called “pyrolysis.” Id. You indicate, however, that multiple
lawsuits have been filed in the State of California alleging that advanced recycling practices are
neither recycling nor environmentally friendly. Id. at 2–3. These lawsuits have prompted you to
seek clarification regarding the status of advanced recycling under the laws of Texas. Id. at 3.

Advanced recycling facilities utilize processes that are expressly recognized as
recycling under the Texas Health and Safety Code.

The Solid Waste Disposal Act is one of the primary frameworks governing recycling across
Texas. See generally TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE §§ 361.001–.992. In relevant part, the Act
defines an “[a]dvanced recycling facility” as “a manufacturing facility that receives, stores, and
converts post-use polymers and recoverable feedstocks using advanced recycling technologies and
processes including pyrolysis,” 2 id. § 361.003(1); accord 30 TEX. ADMIN. CODE §§ 330.3(5),
335.1(8)—i.e., “a manufacturing process through which post-use polymers are heated in an

1
Letter from Hon. Ashley Cain Land, Chambers Cnty. Att’y, to Hon. Ken Paxton, Tex. Att’y Gen. at 1 (June
5, 2025), https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/request-files/request/2025/RQ0602KP.pdf
(“Request Letter”).
2
The Act also identifies “gasification, solvolysis, and depolymerization” as advanced recycling technologies
and processes that pertain to different types of materials. TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE § 361.003(1); see also id.
§ 361.003(6-a) (defining “[d]epolymerization,” which is used on “post-use polymers”), .003(10-a) (defining
“[g]asification,” which is used on “recoverable feedstocks”), .003(37-a) (defining “[s]olvolysis,” which is used on
“post-use polymers”).
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oxygen-deficient atmosphere and the pyrolysis product is converted into valuable raw materials or
valuable intermediate or final products.” TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE § 361.003(25-a) (adding
that this “does not include incineration”). “Post-use polymers,” in turn, are “plastics” that:

(A) are derived from any industrial, commercial, agricultural, or
domestic activity, including preconsumer recovered materials and
postconsumer materials;

(B) are sorted from solid waste and other regulated waste and may
contain residual amounts of organic material and incidental
contaminants or impurities such as paper labels or metal rings;

(C) are not mixed with solid waste or hazardous waste onsite or
during processing at an advanced recycling facility;

(D) are used or intended for use as a feedstock or for the production
of feedstocks, raw materials, or other intermediate or final products
using advanced recycling; and

(E) are processed or held prior to processing at an advanced
recycling facility.

Id. § 361.003(24-a); accord 30 TEX. ADMIN. CODE §§ 330.3(118), 335.1(137).

An advanced recycling facility that uses pyrolysis on post-use polymers is engaged in
recycling under the Solid Waste Disposal Act.

With this background in mind, we turn to your question regarding “whether advanced
recycling in Texas . . . constitutes legal recycling under Texas law.” Request Letter at 1. “Our
ultimate purpose when construing a statute is to discover the Legislature’s intent.” City of Round
Rock v. Rodriguez, 399 S.W.3d 130, 133 (Tex. 2013). “Where text is clear,” of course, “text is
determinative of that intent.” Entergy Gulf States, Inc. v. Summers, 282 S.W.3d 433, 437 (Tex.
2009). Furthermore, we “must adhere to legislative definitions of terms when they are supplied.”
Youngkin v. Hines, 546 S.W.3d 675, 680 (Tex. 2018).

Here, of course, there can be no doubt that pyrolysis of post-use polymers constitutes
recycling under Texas law. The Act defines “[r]ecycling” as “a process by which materials that
have served their intended use or are scrapped, discarded, used, surplus, or obsolete are collected,
separated, or processed and returned to use in the form of raw materials or feedstocks used in the
manufacture of new products.” TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE § 361.421(8)(C); see also id.
§ 361.003(27) (incorporating this definition). Moreover, the Act makes clear that an “[a]dvanced
recycling facility” uses “advanced recycling technologies and processes” that include “pyrolysis”
of “post-use polymers.” Id. § 361.003(1); accord 30 TEX. ADMIN. CODE §§ 330.3(5), 335.1(8).
This plain-text reality is further confirmed by the fact that “conversion of post-use polymers . . .
through pyrolysis” is expressly identified as an enumerated form of “recycling.” TEX. HEALTH &
SAFETY CODE § 361.421(8)(C). As such, the arrangement you describe—where “communities’
plastic waste” will be collected, sorted, and ultimately pyrolyzed by ExxonMobil’s advanced
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recycling facilities, 3 Request Letter at 2—constitutes recycling under Texas law so long as the
plastics being converted are post-use polymers. 4 See generally TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE
§ 361.003(24-a).

Neither does the out-of-state litigation you reference alter this conclusion. Those cases turn
on California law and, above all else, the allegation that advanced recycling is merely a form of
incineration. Request Letter at 1–3. But the Texas Legislature has made clear that “an advanced
recycling facility is not . . . [an] incinerator.” TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE § 361.003(1); accord
id. § 361.421(8) (providing that “‘[r]ecycling’ . . . does not include incineration of plastics”),
30 TEX. ADMIN. CODE §§ 335.1(89), (146). Indeed, the statutory definition of pyrolysis—an
enumerated example of advanced recycling, TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE §§ 361.003(1),
.421(8)(C)—echoes as much by providing that the process “does not include incineration.” Id.
§ 361.003(25-a). The same is true of other heat-based forms of advanced recycling. See, e.g., id.
§ 361.003(10-a) (defining “[g]asification” as “a process through which recoverable feedstocks are
heated and converted,” which “does not include incineration”). Realizing that “[t]he Legislature
determines public policy through the statutes it passes,” Fairfield Ins. Co. v. Stephens Martin
Paving, LP, 246 S.W.3d 653, 665 (Tex. 2008), these out-of-state cases provide no basis on which
to question what is otherwise clear under Texas law.

3
We also received briefing from ExxonMobil that confirms its facilities “exclusively process[] post-use
polymers and recoverable feedstock” by first applying “heat[] in the absence of oxygen” and then “convert[ing] [that
material] into intermediate raw materials,” “remov[ing] contaminants,” and converting “the raw materials . . . to
monomers” that are ultimately “converted to polymers” as well as “other products.” Brief from Eloissa D. Wells,
Dir. of Circular Prods., ExxonMobil, to Joshua Fiveson, Chair, Op. Comm., Off. of Tex. Att’y Gen. at 5–6 (July 23,
2025) (on file with the Op. Comm.).
4
Pyrolysis cannot be conducted on recoverable feedstocks that do not constitute post-use polymers, for
example, because that process is defined as one “through which post-use polymers are heated . . . and . . . converted.”
TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE § 361.003(25-a) (emphasis added); see also id. § 361.003(26-a)(A)–(B) (providing
that “[r]ecoverable feedstock” includes “post-use polymers” in addition to other materials). Recoverable feedstocks
beyond post-use polymers are instead processed through “[g]asification,” which also uses heat-based conversion “in
an oxygen-deficient atmosphere.” Id. § 361.003(10-a). But we were only asked about pyrolysis and therefore limit
our answer accordingly.
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S U M M A R Y

Advanced recycling facilities that use pyrolysis on post-use
polymers are engaged in recycling under the Solid Waste Disposal
Act.

Very truly yours,

KEN PAXTON
Attorney General of Texas

BRENT WEBSTER
First Assistant Attorney General

LESLEY FRENCH
Chief of Staff

D. FORREST BRUMBAUGH
Deputy Attorney General for Legal Counsel

JOSHUA C. FIVESON
Chair, Opinion Committee

ALLISON FREED
Assistant Attorney General, Opinion Committee