ISRI participated in a recently filed lawsuit which seeks to compel the City of Indianapolis to rescind a contract signed by the City in August. The contract (which the City calls an “amendment” to an existing contract for incinerating the City’s solid waste) grants the incumbent incinerator operator permission to build a $45 million “dirty MRF” adjacent to the current incinerator facility.
A dirty MRF is the term used for facilities where recyclables commingled with all other solid waste are segregated from the solid waste and processed as recyclables. Recyclable materials emanating from a dirty MRF are, almost by definition, contaminated materials that will likely not meet industry quality standards for prepared scrap materials. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are arguing that the City failed to abide by certain contracting rules spelled out in the State of Indiana’s laws.
ISRI met with the Mayor’s chief of staff, a city councilor and the Mayor himself to voice our concerns about relying upon a dirty MRF significantly increase the recovery of recyclables in the City. ReMA also filed comments with the City’s Board of Public Works and members of the City Council voicing our strong concerns. Additionally, ReMA has been working as part of an ad hoc coalition of a group of recycled paper mill members and other interested recyclers to alert the City that their plan is almost doomed to fail, but also to point out that the contract, which would relieve the City of certain “put or pay” penalties, is not a panacea and in fact it is written in a manner that is not favorable to the City.
While not a named Plaintiff in the current lawsuit, ReMA continues to actively support the efforts of the plaintiffs and the ad hoc coalition that we have been working with on this matter.
For more information, contact
Scott Horne.