Indianapolis Resource Recovery Facility: Community Efforts and Techology Required for a Successful Project

There are many community needs. Refuse is an abundant byproduct of our civilization. The disposal of this byproduct has become a major problem for our cities. This paper describes one community’s efforts to turn a community problem, refuse disposal, into a community asset. The paper describes the many aspects of effort and technology required to develop the Indianapolis Resource Recovery Facility. This facility required the cooperation of the public and private sectors to blend technology into a successful project. Special efforts were required to match appropriate technology to specific community needs and produce a successful and economically sound project. Five basic activities are presented. The first four activities are essential steps for any community to assure the right project fit to community needs. The areas presented are: (1) defining community needs, (2) technology evaluation (approaches evaluated), (3) feasibility studies (economic studies), (4) project implementation (bids and contracts), and (5) a description of the Indianapolis Resource Recovery facility. A review of these five areas places a real world perspective on refuse as an alternative fuel and source of resource recovery.