Indiana wants the public's help crafting a new recycling plan

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management is working on a plan to achieve the state's long-held goal to recycle half its waste. Right now, only about 19 percent gets recycled.

The state hasn't updated its solid waste and recycling plan in about 35 years.

Tom Leas is with IDEM's recycling group. He said the technology to track and recycle materials has greatly improved since the '90s — and there's a lot of opportunity for recycling in Indiana.

"So Indiana's a big manufacturing state. So we have a demand for recyclables. So if we get them out of the waste stream, then we can make them back into new products," Leas said.

Leas said there are mills that manufacture cardboard, glass and steel, for example.

Bart Gauck has a waste tire removal and processing business in Ripley County. But his issue isn't material — it's staff.

Gauck said dairy farmers like to use the sidewalls of semi trucks to hold down plastic on their cattle feed bunkers — making them air tight helps keep it from spoiling. He said these sidewalls are in such high demand, he can't process them fast enough.

"If I had more labor, I could do a lot more things. But with the struggle of trying to get people to show up to work, it's really holding me back," Gauck said.

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The state is looking into several possible recycling solutions. Things like donating or composting food waste from restaurants and grocery stores; increasing access to curbside bins and drop-off locations; and upgrading the facilities that sort and process recycling.

For solid waste managers, like Lenn Detwiler of the Hendricks County Recycling District, one of the biggest issues is money. It costs a lot to collect, sort, bail and ship all of that recycling — and grants don't tend to cover those ongoing costs.

One of the solutions IDEM is looking into is increasing the per-ton fee landfills charge trucks that drop off waste. Money from the fee helps to fund some recycling programs in Indiana. As of two years ago, Indiana had the lowest average tipping fee among Midwest states.

"So that makes landfilling a little bit more enticing in Indiana than maybe recycling is at least from a financial standpoint," Detwiler said.

IDEM is hosting open houses on the recycling plan — including in Whiteland, Evansville, South Bend and Valparaiso.

Rebecca is our energy and environment reporter. Contact her at rthiele@iu.edu or on Signal at IPBenvironment.01. Follow her on Twitter at @beckythiele.