Indiana Awards Recycling Market Development Grants from $3.7 Million Pool

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) runs a Recycling Market Development Program that helps fund projects to collect, process and find buyers for recycled materials in the state.

The February 2025 funding round

At its February 2025 meeting, Indiana’s Recycling Market Development Board reviewed seven applications that together requested about $10 million, against roughly $3.7 million in available funding. The board awarded funding to five of the projects, according to IDEM’s published meeting summary.

Demand for the money was well above what was available, which suggests that recyclers and manufacturers in Indiana see room to expand collection and processing if they can share the up-front cost.

Why market development matters

Recycling only works when collected material has somewhere to go. Grants like these typically help businesses buy sorting or processing equipment, start collecting new materials, or turn recovered material into feedstock for manufacturers. Indiana has a large manufacturing base, which gives recycled materials potential local buyers.

Learn more

Program details, grant rounds and board meeting records are published on IDEM’s Recycling Market Development Program page. The Indiana Recycling Coalition and the EPA’s Sustainable Materials Management pages are also useful starting points.