Officials with Rumpke Waste and Recycling along with state and local officials gathered at the site at Rumpke’s Medora Landfill for a ribbon-cutting ceremony last week. The recycling center opened in the summer of 2017 with three employees and a simple goal: Increasing recycling opportunities for the residents and businesses of Jackson County and surrounding communities. “That goal has been realized and we’re moving forward,” Eric Curtis said.
Curtis, who is Rumpke’s region vice president, said with the expansion, the center now has a larger tipping floor, push walls and an overhead enclosure. The expansion was funded by a $175,000 grant from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management’s Recycling Market Development Program and a $175,000 match from Rumpke.
A $87,425 grant from IDEM also helped finance construction of the original center in 2017. The center, which cost $652,425 to build, led to the expansion of curbside recycling throughout Jackson County. At that time, Rumpke had been offering curbside recycling in Brownstown and Crothersville. Seymour has its own curbside recycling program.
The Medora center’s new push walls and overhead enclosure are designed to help to combat the weather and better contain materials. In the past, recycling items could get blown away by wind or wet from rain. The larger tipping floor expands the amount of space to organize materials and accept recyclables. “Before the push walls everything wanted to go to the fences,” landfill Manager Brad Marlow said.