A recycling center for Lake County, Valparaiso, Portage and Chesterton could be coming to Hobart.
The Hobart Board of Public Works voted earlier this week night to send out proposals for a new materials recycling facility to be located within the city limits.
“We need a recycling center,” Hobart Mayor Linda Buzinec said.
Buzinec said the city will mail out requests for proposals to companies that might be willing to bid on the recycling center. The proposals will be opened at a public meeting Oct. 14.
By sending out requests for proposals, the city is not locked into accepting the recycling center. If the Board of Works doesn’t like any of the proposals, it can vote not to accept them.
But some hope they will accept a plan.
“Lake County would love to have a MRF,” said Jeff Langbehn, executive director of the Lake County Solid Waste Management Board. “It would be a regional MRF, not just a Lake County MRF.”
Langbehn said a materials recycling facility can be an enclosed building located on a site ranging from 1 acre to 30 or 40 acres.
Amy Hartsock, a spokeswoman for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, said a materials recycling facility may operate without a permit as long as more than 90 percent of the materials brought in are recycled and only 10 percent go to a landfill.
If more than 10 percent goes to a landfill, then the facility must have a transfer station permit.
Hartsock said Hammond has a materials recycling facility, but Langbehn said it is not a full-blown MRF.
Hartsock said a materials recycling facility is run like any other business and receives no tax dollars from IDEM. MRFs sell scrap metal, plastic, bottles, aluminum cans, paper, and all other recyclables. Gary (Indiana) Post Tribune