HOPE – After nearly a year’s absence, in-town recycling is coming back to Hope.
As part of a newly renegotiated contract with Waste Management, Inc., the town will receive three recycling containers shortly after the new agreement goes into effect on Dec. 1. The dumpsters will be placed in the southeast corner of the Hope Utilities Garage parking lot, facing Maple Street.
Two bins will have slots in them, in order to incentivize residents to break down cardboard and similar paper products, according to Daniela Schrock, senior account executive with Waste Management.
The third container is for other conventional recyclable materials including plastic bottles, cans and glass, Schrock said.
The containers will be 8-yard recycling dumpsters, Hope town manager Jason Eckart said. About 6-feet tall, 6-feet wide and 7-feet high, they get their name from the fact that they hold 8 cubic yards of waste.
Under the new contract, Waste Management agrees to empty the three containers once a week for a monthly fee of $375 ($4,500 a year).
But if the amount of recyclables warrants the dumpsters being emptied twice a week, the cost will increase to $575 a month.
“We thought we would try once a week for now, and maybe up that in the future,” Eckart said.
Town council members felt that Best Way of Indiana, Inc., which had been in charge of maintaining the town’s recycling container up until last January, became too expensive. After significant fee increases were added annually starting in 2020, the town found itself paying $24,214 annually for recycling in 2023.
The Hope Town Council agreed to use economic development income tax (EDIT) funds to maintain the recycling program through last year while Eckart looked for affordable options.
One option considered was a baler for recycling cardboard, but Eckart said there weren’t enough employees available to take on the additional responsibility.
With no other options, the container was removed at the end of last January.
With in-town recycling returning to Hope, efforts will be made to keep residents from contaminating recyclables by throwing their entire trash in.
The food and liquids in conventional garbage can create a mold that eats away at the fibers in paper and cardboard, so it can’t be turned into new paper. Mold can also spread to other accepted items like bottles or cans, lowering their value.
Efforts will be made in the coming weeks to educate Hope-area residents on the importance of sorting out recyclable materials and understanding what can – and cannot – be recycled, Schrock and Eckart said.
But anybody who thinks they can just throw their entire trash into a recycling bin should think again. Schrock said modern technology will allow Waste Management to provide artificial intelligence cameras in the containers that can be used in analyzing the contaminants. The cameras might also show who the troublemakers are, she said.
The town’s new contract with Waste Management will remain in place until Nov. 30, 2027.
