The operations Kokomo Recycle President J.D. Mohr and his employees have worked hard to build up could nearly double, both in workforce and productivity, in a few short months.
As it stands, Mohr and Kokomo Recycle handle the sorting of recycled materials from Kokomo, as well as Cass and Miami counties, along with neighboring cities like Alexandria and Hartford City.
It is Mohr’s desire to expand the operation to a regional recycling hub, he said, which could add 16 employees to his business at 1701 N. Market St. Kokomo Recycle also has a number of private businesses that use its services and generate much of the company’s paper materials.
Nearly $2.5 million in equipment upgrades and an addition $150,000 in building upgrades at Kokomo Recycling will be made possible through the city’s curbside recycling program, which kicks off in April, allowing residents to put their recyclable materials out alongside their trash every other week.
It’s all part of the expanding industry of recycling, which has the potential for continued growth as cities face increased landfill tipping fees.
“That’s what made this possible was the city committing material to the facility,” Mohr said, glancing at the new, state-of-the-art conveyor system that will separate different types of recyclable materials. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to do it. We have the county’s volume and other haulers, like Cass and Miami counties, that bring it here. Once we get all of that locked in, it justifies the expense of putting a system like this in.”
Nearly 60 percent of the recyclable materials that currently enter his warehouse are either newsprint or cardboard, but Mohr expects to diversify that intake once the curbside program takes off.
“The curbside program will be container-heavy with a lot of milk jugs, pop bottles and aluminum cans,” he said. “There’s a lot of value in that.”
The switch to curbside recycling will change operations at the Howard County Recycling District, where recyclable materials are picked up at 15 different locations throughout the county, many within Kokomo.
Having a curbside program will decrease residents’ usage of those bins at satellite locations, Recycling District Director Mikki Jeffers said, but that might not be such a bad thing.
The less recycled materials that go into those bins, the more money saved from pulling the bins to empty them, Jeffers said.
“I hope the numbers don’t drop,” she said. “I hope the city’s program takes off and they do a great job of promoting it and educating people. What I’m hoping for on our end is that other people who come in will utilize the bins even more.”
It creates some uncertainty for the future, Jeffers said, but she remains optimistic the recycling district will continue to thrive. Over the past five years, the district has brought in anywhere from 2,800 to 3,500 tons of recyclable materials per year from its satellite bins. Last year, the district brought in 3,068 tons through the month of November.
The success of the curbside program, Jeffers said, could be predicated on the fact that a single stream recycling process makes it easier on residents to recycle.
“I feel like if you’re going to make it easier for them, they’re going to do it,” she said. “If you make it too confusing, why waste their time on doing it? What we do now is single stream, so you don’t have to do any of the separating or remove labels. You just have to put it in the container and you’re good to go.”
The State of Recycling
State Sen. Mark Stoops, D-Bloomington, noted that $20 million in funding that lawmakers had intended to use promoting recycling has reverted to the state in recent years, and an $8 million balance is currently going unused.
State environmental commissioner Tom Easterly said much of the money for recycling programs was suspended during the 2008 recession, when Indiana, like other states, cut spending to offset lost revenue.
Gov. Mike Pence's administration had cut the $1.1 million legislators approved for recycling programs this year to $500,000. Lobbying by the Indiana Recycling Coalition prompted the 2013 Indiana General Assembly to boost Indiana’s recycling collection infrastructure by $500,000.
While the increase in funds was modest, it is a step in the right direction, IRC Executive Director Carey Hamilton said.
What Indiana might be missing out on, Hamilton said, are the potential jobs and economic uptick realized through increasing recycling in the state.
A recent study conducted by the Bowen Center for Public Affairs at Ball State University shows the state could create 10,000 jobs if it diverted 25 percent more waste to the recycling industry.
“When folks think about recycling, they think about the energy benefits,” Hamilton said. “But I also think that recycling could be helping to build part of the Indiana economy. Those are real jobs and it’s a relatively small investment to get there and make sure that statewide, recycling is something that’s accessible and convenient.”
But is the state taking advantage of this opportunity?
The study revealed that 66 percent of what gets thrown away throughout the state could be recovered and used as raw material by Indiana manufacturers.
Of the 6 million tons of trash Indiana residents throw away each year, 92 percent can be recycled, Hamilton said, and 77 manufacturers in the state use recycled materials.
Hamilton said the Indiana Recycling Coalition will continue to work with the state to make sure lawmakers know that recycling is a viable economic option.
“Indiana has a relatively low recycling rate and a relatively strong in-state demand from our commodity manufacturing sector,” she said. “If we don’t take advantage of this, we’re virtually burying jobs in landfills.”
Some of Indiana’s larger cities already have gone down the same path as Kokomo, but results on curbside programs have been mixed.
The city of Elkhart, with a population of around 49,000, has had its curbside recycling program in place since the early 2000s and is in the middle of a lengthy contract with Borden Waste-Away Services.
Elkhart residents recycled an average of 190,000 pounds of materials per month last year, city Utility Services Manager Laura Kolo said.
The switch to curbside recycling, which is provided on a weekly basis by the city in two 14-gallon containers, has reduced littering around the city, Kolo said, even if the numbers aren’t trending in an overwhelmingly positive direction.
In 2007, Kolo said the city collected 209,000 pounds of recyclables per month, 19,000 more pounds per month than this year. That might have more to do with the way materials were weighed than the actual amount of materials being collected, Kolo noted.
Despite providing the curbside program for all of its residents, Kolo still feels that people will always have to make their own decision on whether they want to recycle.
“The ones that are into (recycling) don’t mind separating it and doing all of that,” she said. “People are going to recycle or they’re not. We believe (curbside recycling) has reduced littering. People are likely going to put something in the recycling bin if it’s made available to them.”
Kokomo Mayor Greg Goodnight believes now is the time to provide the citizens of Kokomo with a more convenient way to take recycling into their own hands.
“I think it’s extremely important and we, as a society, have an obligation to recycle and make best use of the resources we have in our community,” he said. “Trash and landfill costs are only going to go up. I think we need to be as proactive as possible.”