Covanta suspends recycling center contract with Indianapolis

FORT WAYNE (Scrap Monster): The City of Indianapolis and Covanta Indianapolis Inc., have agreed to temporarily suspend plans for construction of mixed-waste materials recovery facility which was to be located at Covanta’s Indianapolis campus. A press release to this effect was sent out by Mayor Joe Hogsett yesterday morning.

Announcing the plan to drop construction of the $45 million Advanced Recycling Center (ARC), Mayor stated that Indianapolis plans to listen from its community before moving ahead with its waste and recycling plan. The administration plans to gather information over the next 90 days in order to aid reassessment of the proposed mixed-waste MRF project. During this period, the City administration will hold meetings with local groups and key stakeholders.

Meantime, Covanta Indianapolis has offered assistance to city officials in gathering information from residents. At the same time, the company will remain committed to its existing service agreements with the City. Covanta also added that it will be ready to assist the City in any capacity once it finalizes on its recycling strategy.

The Covanta Advanced Recycling Center was proposed to be first complete sustainable waste management system of its kind in North America. The state-of-the-art facility was intended to collect household waste and recyclables at no cost to Indianapolis residents. Under the contract, Covanta is supposed to sort out recyclable materials from commingled trash to be sold out in open market, The remaining waste is supposed to be burned for energy production at the existing waste-to-energy facility.

The project announced by previous mayor Greg Ballard in June 2014 had drawn severe criticisms from several groups. A lawsuit was filed against the City in September alleging that the decision to sign the contract was done without following proper procedures. Several groups had also opposed the terms of the contract under which the City would be penalized for expanding recycling collections.

Meantime, Indiana Recycling Coalition welcomed the decision to suspend Covanta’s ARC proposal.