Rumpke of Indiana’s efforts to increase recycling in Jackson County and southern Indiana recently received a boost from a $1 million state initiative to benefit the environment while creating jobs.

The company, which operates the Medora Landfill, plans to use an $87,425 grant from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management’s Recycling Market Development Program to construct a 5,540-square-foot pad with an enclosure to protect a horizontal baler.

The grant, one of eight recently announced by the state, requires a 50 percent match, and Rumpke plans to provide the baler with an in-feed conveyor and a compactor unit with a receiver box, landfill manager Ralph Collins said.

The project will allow the company to remove cardboard collected from commercial and residential customers in Jackson County, bale it and send it into companies that deal in the cardboard market.

At the present time, the cardboard and other recyclables collected by the company are taken to the landfill and then loaded on trucks that are then sent to the company’s recycling center in Cincinnati, Collins said.

“This streamlines the transportation of our recycling,” he said. “We send one or two loads a day to Cincinnati.”

Once the cardboard is out of the waste stream, the remainder of the recyclables, including glass and plastics, will continue to be sent to Cincinnati for sorting and then on to other companies for reuse.

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For information about the Indiana Department of Environmental Management’s Recycling Market Development Program, visit in.gov/idem/recycle/2358.htm.

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