Jun
5
Who buys blue bags?
Filed Under Green Initiatives
I’ve been doing a little research on how Chicago recycles. Blue bags are on their way out, and no one seems to mind.
I didn’t live in Chicago back when the blue bags were the way it worked. Can someone tell me please, did you go out and pay money for these blue bags? And did you take them home and fill them up with your recyclables? And at the end of the week, did you throw those blue bags in the big trash bin together with all your other trash for the Streets and San to collect? Did you like the system? Did you believe those little plastic bottles and newspapers would one day fulfill their destiny as material cruising down a conveyor belt at some distant recycling plant?
In this article published in the Chicago Reader in July of 2006, Mick Dumke writes about the political favors that went into the development of the blue bags recycling program, the complete lack of accountability and the city’s lame attempts to inflate its sad recycling numbers.
Now, the city’s announced it’s going to expand the Blue Cart Recycling pilot program to encompass 600,000 homes in Chicago by 2011. Who thinks it’s going to work better! Raise your hand!
Seriously. I need to do more research. And I don’t think Streets and San appreciate it.
Whoever would have thought the simple goodness of recycling could be twisted into such a complex vortex where transparency is sucked out of sight.