Hearing Independent State contains endless scrap (13)
I believe the answer is:
investigation
'hearing' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'independent state contains endless scrap' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'independent' could be 'i' and 'i' is found in the answer.
'state' could be 'ga' (abbreviation for the US state) and 'ga' is present in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for investigation that I've seen before include "Inquiry" , "Analysis" , "fact-finding search" , "Making enquiries" , "Probe" .)