On the banks of the Susquehanna river in rural Pennsylvania, an empty plot of land is the silent keeper of environmental anxieties and business ambitions concerning a controversial process known as chemical recycling. The concept promises to turn hard-to-recycle plastics into usable chemicals and substances, a technology championed by the fossil fuel industry, but which environmentalists call deceptive. In the small community of Point Township, where the site of a proposed chemical recycling plant is located, residents fear air pollution and water contamination. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES