Indianapolis is at risk of becoming the most wasteful big city in America.

It already wastes the greatest portion of its recyclable trash among any of the 20 biggest cities, and many recycle far, far more.

How bad is it? In San Francisco, the top recycling city, 80 percent of the trash is reused. In Seattle, almost all residents participate in the program, reusing nearly 60 percent of the waste. The national average is 35 percent.

And in Indianapolis? Only 7 percent is recycled.

IndyStar gathered and analyzed recycling rates — the percentage of waste that is kept from the landfill or incinerator — for the 50 most populous cities in the country. Urban areas from New York City to Houston, Portland to Milwaukee and Phoenix to Columbus typically recycle as much as 20 or 30 percent of their waste, and some much more.

Indy — the nation's 14th largest city — is the biggest municipality without a curbside recycling program serving every household. And only two of the top 50 cities — Detroit and New Orleans — recycle slightly less than Indianapolis.

Unlike Indianapolis, however, those cities are notorious for their financial struggles. In Indianapolis, the situation has been a matter of policy.

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Instead of creating an incentive to recycle, the city's trash hauler charges residents for the privilege. And lurking behind that decision is politicians' reluctance to pay for a robust system, and their long commitment to burning a huge portion of the city's trash that could be recycled.

“Absolutely, Indianapolis is behind,” said Ron Gonen, co-founder and CEO of the Closed Loop Fund, a national organization that funds efforts to build and expand recycling infrastructure. “If I was an Indy resident, I would be scratching my head and asking the city: 'What are we missing in Indy? Why aren’t we able to take advantage of this?'”

And, in fact, many are.

Newcomers are often caught off guard. David Johnson moved here nearly two years ago from Seattle, where recycling is a way of life — if not a “hobby,” as he describes it. He was disappointed to find out recycling was "like a foreign language" in Indianapolis.

“It implies the city is not vibrant, behind the times, and not a leader in conservation or clean environment efforts,” Johnson said.

Longtime residents also say they want universal recycling. City officials say they receive weekly phone calls and emails from people asking about recycling. Responding to a 2016 survey by the city's Office of Sustainability, 91 percent of residents asked agreed that recycling is important.

Recycling is no longer considered an amenity for the best cities, said Allyson Mitchell, executive director of the Indiana Recycling Coalition. It’s an expectation. Any city without it is at a disadvantage when trying to attract progressive companies.

Mayor Joe Hogsett’s administration has now promised to expand the program.

"We have an unsustainable model for trash disposal that is the legacy system that has grown up over time," Indianapolis Deputy Mayor Jeff Bennett said. "The future of solid waste has to change, so we are looking at how do you include universal curbside recycling in that future."

But, for decades, mayor after mayor in Indianapolis — Republican and Democrat — has made similar promises that went nowhere. Residents and advocates wonder if this time will be different.

“It’s a sad, sad story in Indianapolis,” Mitchell said. “It’s a saga.”

Penalized for recycling

The city’s recycling problems date back to decisions made more than 40 years ago, when a country enormously dependent on fossil fuels was hit by rising oil prices and diminishing landfill space.

As early as 1975, city officials created a task force to find ways to reduce the amount of trash going into landfills because the city was "running out of options," according to Dave Arland, who was press secretary to former Mayor William Hudnut. By 1981, they landed on the idea of building an incinerator to create energy, a path they would doggedly stick to over the next 38 years.

What was then Ogden Martin Systems came to town in 1985 and struck up a deal with the city to build and operate an incinerator. The city issued $109 million in bonds to finance the project, which Ogden was on the hook to pay — so the city needed Ogden to succeed. In 1988 the incinerator on Harding Street on the southwest side burned its first load of trash.

It was billed as a form of recycling. And indeed it put trash to use. The city bought steam energy produced by the incinerator to heat and cool its downtown buildings.

Strictly speaking, however, it was not a recycling program. The plastics, paper, aluminum and other materials heaped into the incinerator were reused only once. A curbside recycling program not only reduces the need for landfill space, but also reuses the materials again and again.

What’s more, an incinerator is not as clean. Five months after its launch, the incinerator violated its air quality permit for the first time. And it has done so repeatedly: In its first few years of operating, the incinerator exceeded its pollution limits as many as six to 10 times a month. The facility violated its permit as recently as 2018 when equipment malfunctions caused it to spew too much carbon monoxide into the air.

Even when it operates within federal limits, the incinerator produces more greenhouse gases than recycling does. And the ash and other detritus the incinerator generates are still sent to the landfill.

Many cities were already abandoning their incinerator plans or closing their facilities by the mid-1990s. Instead, cities from coast-to-coast and throughout Indiana were launching curbside recycling.

Indianapolis officials, however, showed only a faint interest in joining what was swiftly becoming standard operating procedure. Officials at the New Jersey-based company now called Covanta insisted that the incinerator did not create a disincentive for curbside recycling — a position they maintain today.

“In the vast majority of the communities where we operate, curbside has been very successful,” company spokesman James Regan told IndyStar. “We have always been supportive of increasing recycling in the city … and we remain supportive.” Arland agreed, and emphasized that incineration and recycling are not mutually exclusive.

But, in practice, the contract with Covanta created hurdles.

As part of the contract, Indianapolis received a break on the steam energy costs based on how much trash it sent to the incinerator — if it sent less, it paid more for energy.

The incinerator had such a hunger for fuel that the city passed an ordinance that forbade trash haulers operating in the city from disposing of their refuse anywhere else because the facility "needed a guaranteed method of revenue," Arland told IndyStar. Such ordinances were later struck down as unconstitutional for discriminating against interstate and international trade.

Still, it made clear how adamant the city was about burning as much trash as possible.

Another contract clause also encouraged incineration. It required the city to deliver more than 300,000 tons of waste per year to the incinerator, or pay a penalty.

Again and again, the wisdom of that penalty was debated as mayor after mayor promised to expand recycling. Yet the penalty created by Mayor William Hudnut was sustained through the administrations of Steve Goldsmith, Bart Peterson and Greg Ballard.

“It is inexplicable to me that over the course of many administrations that the contract was renewed again and again, and someone didn’t say we need to take this out of there,” said state Rep. Carey Hamilton, who now represents Marion County but previously led the Indiana Recycling Coalition.

The penalty survived until Hogsett removed it early in his term.

“Without a doubt that was a deterrent because it was a disincentive to try to capture the most,” Mitchell said. “But now we can institute recycling without fear of penalty.”

Lack of political will

In the early 1990s Indiana's legislature adopted sweeping changes to how solid waste is managed, creating an explosion of recycling programs — everywhere but in Marion County.

The law created county solid waste management districts to serve as dedicated, independent experts to develop recycling programs and set the rates necessary to run them. But it exempted Marion County, largely because of Covanta’s incinerator.

Observers say those districts effectively removed the politics from recycling decisions — and more than 100 cities and towns across the state pursued recycling. Indiana’s recycling rate rose to 17 percent, even without a comprehensive program in the state’s largest city.

But in Marion County, politicians still held the reins. And they were loath to raise money to pay for recycling. Arland said it feels good to say the city has universal recycling, but it comes with a price tag.

"It requires political will to make it happen and a City-County Council willing to put its neck on the line if taxes needed to go up to support it," he said. "That may have changed now, but at the end of the day it just was not possible in the late '70s and early '80s."

In fact, the taboo on raising rates was so strong city politicians not only failed to launch a viable recycling program, they also declined to raise the solid waste fee for more than 30 years.

Today's solid waste fee does not even cover the true cost of trash disposal. To cover the shortfall — a number that continues to grow — the city has been drawing down a fund that is expected to be depleted in a few years. When that happens, rates will need to rise or the city will need to rob funds used for other city services.

“It was a very unpopular thing as mayor to increase rates,” Mitchell said. “Recycling inherently became political, and the problem just continued to compound over the years.”

Even as far back as 1991, for example, Goldsmith stumped on increasing recycling options. In the end, however, he proved reluctant to invest in a program that a local trash hauler at the time said the city considered a “necessary nuisance.”

Still, Goldsmith takes credit for creating the city's curbside leaf collection program and for conducting studies that looked at increasing curbside pick-up. In a statement to the Star, the former mayor said his administration did not want to add charges to make recycling mandatory. Peterson did not respond to requests for comment.

Not everyone thought of it that way, however. Residents increasingly asked for a program. And at least one Indianapolis glass recycling company said it teetered on the edge of closure. Strategic Materials blamed the city for the company's inability to operate at full capacity. Company officials said they would not have located here if the city had no intention of establishing a comprehensive program.

“I thought the city would implement curbside (recycling) countywide; everybody led me to believe that,” Ed McMahon told the Indianapolis Star in an April 1996 article. He was the vice president for the northern region of Strategic Materials, which still operates — below capacity — in the city.

“I would think sooner or later they’ll have to recycle,” McMahon said more than 20 years ago, “the rest of the world is.”

Employing their "necessary nuisance" philosophy, city officials did reluctantly back into a subscription recycling program. Many cities that embraced recycling achieved recycling rates of 40 percent or more by charging residents more to throw away trash, less to recycle. But Indianapolis did the opposite: residents have to pay as much as $99 a year for the privilege of recycling.

And the results, critics say, were predictable. Only 10 percent of residents have opted into the program. The city acknowledges both its participation and recycling rates are low, Bennett said, "even among participants in a voluntary program."

Ballard tried, but flopped

As advances in oil and gas drilling, wind and solar power, and electric vehicles caught on — revolutionizing America’s energy mix and making it an exporter of fossil fuels — Indianapolis stuck with its 1970s Energy Crisis-era waste management strategy.

The incinerator contract was up for renewal in 2008, yet the city didn't recognize a need for change, and stayed its course.

By 2014, a group funded by companies including Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola sent a letter to the city offering interest-free financing “to support the deployment of a curbside recycling program.” Other cities had received between $3 million and $7 million.

The Closed Loop Fund, as the industry group is called, had its eyes trained on Indianapolis, which is surrounded by the companies' plants and facilities across the state and region.

The city, however, left that offer on the table.

“The city was offered significant resources to get a program started, and they declined that opportunity,” Hamilton said. “It was incredibly frustrating to me as a leader trying to bring curbside to all."

Instead, then-Mayor Ballard, who was widely seen as a champion of green causes, signed a $112 million deal with Covanta to combine its waste incinerator operations with a recycling program, a move whose shortcomings were later revealed on an international stage.

Under that set-up, all waste — including trash and recyclables — would still be tossed together in one bin at the end of Indianapolis driveways. Then, machines at Covanta’s facility would pluck the recyclable goods out from all that garbage. Those materials would go on to a recycling facility, while the trash would make its way to the incinerator.

Ballard, who declined requests for comment for this story, said at the time that the deal would finally bring recycling to the city.

“The mayor and city were looking for a one-stop-shop solution by keeping it all under Covanta,” said John Barth, a former Democratic city-county councilman during Ballard’s time in office. “But that was more a good sell than good recycling.”

Critics likened Covanta's proposed process to “dirty recycling.” They argued the recyclable materials would be contaminated by garbage and rendered unusable — that was the case when recyclers rejected materials from a similar plant in Alabama. It also would have left other recyclables, such as glass and some plastics, destined for the inferno.

A lawsuit challenged the contract, saying it was forged behind closed doors without public input or a competitive bidding process. After a prolonged battle, the Indiana Court of Appeals ultimately nixed the deal in 2016.

“If that deal had gone through,” Mitchell said, “it would have literally killed the ability to do a world class recycling program in this city.”

The impracticality of Ballard’s plan was revealed in 2017 when China announced it was tired of sorting through America’s trash.

For years, China had accepted as much as half of the world's trash. But then it said the recyclables the U.S. and other countries were sending over were too contaminated — either with the wrong items, such as garden hoses, or the right items in the wrong way, such as dirty containers.

Had Ballard's deal gone through, Indianapolis would have committed to a $112 million combined trash and recycling program just as other cities were scrambling to keep garbage and recyclables separate.

It was well-intentioned, Mitchell and Barth acknowledge, but misguided. Not taking into account the recycling industry’s needs, Indianapolis’ one attempt failed.

The defeat of Ballard's decision, however, cleared the way for a new program.

“The city emerged from what many saw as an impending disaster to one with tremendous potential,” said Scott Mouw, the senior director for strategy and research at The Recycling Partnership.

Opportunity for the future

Some wonder if Indianapolis will repeat some of its old mistakes.

Many major cities have set their sights on growing the amount they recycle by 2020 and to reaching zero waste by 2030 or 2035.

Indianapolis has promised to create a universal curbside recycling program, but its launch won't be complete until 2025, although some preliminary work to deploy the blue recycling carts may begin before then.

City officials say the 2025 target is necessary to ensure residents are educated and ready to recycle. Recycling advocates are not convinced.

That target date coincides with the expiration of the city’s contract with its trash hauler, Republic Services. Like the Covanta contract, the Republic contract has been continually renewed, most recently in 2015.

Mitchell said she thinks the program could and would be in place sooner if not for the contract. And Johnson said residents shouldn’t have to wait six more years.

Cost also remains a question. Some cities charge more than Indianapolis to provide their recycling and waste disposal services, Bennett said. And Indianapolis officials — anticipating the day the city's waste disposal fund runs dry — are closely examining fees.

"Our focus is really on the future of solid waste as a whole, knowing that the funding model we now have doesn’t work this way forever," Bennett said.

It is unclear if the city will have to raise the solid waste fee to expand recycling, said Katie Robinson, director of the Indianapolis Office of Sustainability. The city will explore creating a solid waste management district, she added, and look to partner with the Closed Loop Fund and Recycling Partnership to offset costs.

Still, Mouw, Mitchell and others are hopeful it will be different this time.

Recycling advocates say it's hard to overstate the impact — or the opportunity — the China announcement represents.

It sent shock waves through the industry. U.S. programs are now wondering how they can produce cleaner recyclables and where they will send them.

The Recycling Partnership, Closed Loop and others say the absence of a comprehensive recycling program gives Indianapolis a unique opportunity to build a new system set up to succeed.

"Given everything that's been going on internationally," Robinson said, "I actually think Indianapolis is best positioned to develop a pretty extraordinary program and develop it correctly."

The city can educate residents on how to use it. It can enhance facilities with technology to better sort the materials. It can learn from other cities. And it can work with manufacturers around the state to put the recyclables to use.

"The more close-to-home we can keep the materials ... the more we can generate the jobs, economic benefits and environmental benefits," Bennett said. "And that’s how the future is different from the past this time."

Mitchell and others feel hopeful. She said a universal recycling program is a prerequisite before Indianapolis can consider itself a world class city — and it has a lot of work to get there.

“We are a unique situation because it is so broken here that it means we get to start from scratch,” she said. “But my biggest fear in this whole situation, with the China ban and starting our own program, is that the state and Indianapolis don’t squeeze every last drop out of this opportunity.”

Sarah Bowman and Emily Hopkins cover the environment for IndyStar. Contact Sarah at 317-444-6129 or sarah.bowman@indystar.com. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook: @IndyStarSarah. Contact Emily at 317-444-6409 or emily.hopkins@indystar.com. Follow her on Twitter: @_thetextfiles.

IndyStar's environmental reporting project is made possible through the generous support of the nonprofit Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.

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