Thread by @BetterGov

1/ Chicago recycling has long been trash.
But it’s not just that the city is bad at it, it’s also unfair depending on what company picks it up and where in the city it’s located. projects.bettergov.org/2018/recycling…

2/ Recycling efforts in Chicago began in the 90’s with the notorious $200 million program called Blue Bag. It was replaced in 2008 with the Blue Cart program and in 2011 @ChicagosMayor announced sweeping changes to it.

3/ Emanuel’s plan was to take the program citywide, which he did, through “managed competition.” The idea: pit private recycling haulers against each other and municipal workers and then pick a winner.

4/ One of the competitors was Texas-based garbage giant Waste Management, Inc. The other was SIMS Metal Management, which subcontracts its collection work to Lakeshore Recycling Systems.

5/ Emanuel promised an assessment and to pick a winner quickly. Six years later, we still don’t have one, the program is on auto-pilot and Chicago has the worst residential recycling rate of any major city in the US.

6/ Do these tags look familiar? If your blue bin has just one forbidden item — say, a sticky peanut butter jar — the whole bin could be labeled “grossly contaminated.” And instead of getting recycled, everything goes to a landfill.

7/ Chicago, unlike any other major city, gives private haulers sole discretion to decide which recycling is diverted to landfills. And one company benefits the most. While both companies are paid whether they pick up the recycling or tag it for the dump, only one owns a landfill.

8/ @WasteManagement gets paid for every recycling bin it services, and sometimes gets paid twice when the contents of that same bin end up in its landfill. projects.bettergov.org/2018/recycling…

9/ Even though Waste Management only covers about half of Chicago — on the Northwest and Far South Sides — the BGA found it’s responsible for nearly 90 percent of bins tagged as “grossly contaminated” since 2013.

10/ Compared to the other half of the city served by the other crews, recycling bins in areas controlled by @WasteManagement are 20 times more likely to be trashed.

11/ Waste Management and the city say they are simply more aggressive about teaching residents proper recycling practices. But a former Streets and Sanitation ward superintendent says officials know there is a problem.

12/ The former ward superintendent confirmed residents’ concerns: “I’ll be very blunt. Sometimes they don’t even come for weeks to pick up in the alleys.”

13/ Some residents say they don’t need to be schooled by @WasteManagement, and that their bins are chronically tagged contaminated even when they’re not. “What’s the point in recycling if they’re not even going to pick it up?” one asked.

14/ Read the full investigation here: projects.bettergov.org/2018/recycling…

15/ Search our database to see if yours is among the more than 200,000 Chicago addresses and contamination reports, and see the disparity between zones controlled by the three haulers. projects.bettergov.org/2018/recycling…

15/ See something that surprises you? Have your own story about recycling problems in Chicago? The BGA wants to hear from you. Text HELLO to [phone] to share your experience.
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