By Tara Molina
Chicago is marking 30 years since it started its first citywide recycling program, which began with a problematic kickoff, and continues to lag behind other major cities in terms of performance.
The CBS News Chicago Climate Watch team is taking a look at where the program started, where it stands now, and what’s happening to make the program better.
Recycling does a lot more than keep waste out of crowded landfills; there also are environmental, economic, and community benefits. Chicago could be doing a lot better, with your help, and recycling is much easier now than it was 30 years ago.
Whether you recycle or compost, one simple move can make a difference.
“If you put it into the trash, it’s going to go to the landfill, and we’ll never be able to use it again,” said Walter Willis, executive director of the Solid Waste Agency of Lake County (SWALCO).
In Chicago, the city’s Streets and Sanitation Department needs more people to make that one simple move.
Chicago’s waste diversion rate – the amount of garbage being recycled instead of dumped in landfills – hovers around 10%. On the West Coast, San Francisco and Los Angeles are diverting about 80% of their waste away from landfills. In New York City, the diversion rate is around 20%.
“Our numbers, in terms of what we put out there as a diversion, is very transparent. It’s the amount of material we collect as refuse, and the amount of material we’re collecting in our recycling. We don’t put any other numbers in there,” said Chris Sauve, Deputy Commissioner for Policy and Sustainability at the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation.
Sauve manages all of the city’s recycling and waste diversion programs, and he’s seen a lot in his more than two decades with the city.
“When I first came on, we still had a Blue Bag system,” he said.
That’s how the city’s recycling program started in December 1995, and while Chicagoans were excited about the Blue Bag program back then, it turned out to be a bit of a flop.
Participants had to get the bags on their own, and only 13% of households participated, despite the city’s claims of more than 30%. With the blue recycling bags collected in the same trucks as regular trash, many were concerned nothing was being recycled at all.
“Because of the Blue Bag, I feel like it’s just the overall sentiment that, people feel that it’s not going to do that much and it’s such a nuisance every day,” said University of Chicago graduate Katherine Tu.
Tu researched Chicago’s recycling history while in graduate school at the University of Chicago, where she focused on environmental policy. She said the history of recycling in Chicago could be why more people aren’t recycling now.
“I think public trust was a big thing that came up,” she said.
The Blue Bag program was replaced with the Blue Cart program in 2008, which is still running today.
“Chicago is such a big city, with such a high density of population. The amount of garbage people generate every day is just humongous,” Tu said.