Area residents have no doubt noticed the recycling woes at Broad Ripple Park lately. There was a day in January when your editor hauled his cardboard recycling to the park only to find a mountain of cardboard surrounding the bin. Rather then add to the problem, I hauled my cardboard back home.

I called Kathy FitzGerald, Park Manager at Broad Ripple Park, to find out how the recycling program works at Broad Ripple Park.

Kathy said that there are three types of recycling at the park (located on the north east corner, accessible from Evanston Avenue), newspapers, cardboard, and combined paper, plastics, glass and metals. The newspaper bins are serviced by Ray's Trash and are emptied on Tuesdays and Fridays. The cardboard bins are serviced by Republic Services and are emptied every day, seven days a week. The combined recycling bins are serviced by the Solid Waste Department of the Department of Public Works (DPW) of the City of Indianapolis and are emptied every day.

I was surprised to hear these claims of daily bin emptying. Since November I have found the bins either completely full, or overflowing, every time I have gone to recycle. Kathy said her contact at DPW lamented that November, December, and January are the toughest months of the year. Recycling is up and things can get out of control. For example, some operators are instructed to not empty a bin if trash, recycling, or other items are blocking the truck's access. So far there is no solution to this problem. IndyParks, which is not responsible for emptying the bins, does not have the staff to clean up around the bins when problems arise. Kathy stated that she is not sure who cleaned up Cardboard Mountain earlier in January. Luckily it was cleaned and the bin emptying resumed.

If DPW is correct, we will hopefully see things return to normal in February.