The blue bag program, Chicago's citywide recycling initiative, is one of the least effective recycling programs in the country. In spite of ten years of operation, 90 percent of Chicago's residential waste goes to landfills and only 10 percent is recycled.

Yet last week, Mayor Daley announced he would continue Chicago's blue bag program for another two years even though there are more effective programs to encourage recycling.

Ask Mayor Daley to improve recycling and reduce pollution and waste by dumping the blue bag and implementing a responsible multi-bin recycling program in Chicago. Then ask your friends and family to help out by forwarding this email to them.

To take action, click on the following link or paste it into your web browser:

pirg.org/alerts/route.asp


Background

The more trash we bury, the more problems we generate for public health and the environment. Landfill waste not only can leak and pollute groundwater, but also creates methane gas, a major contributor to global warming. Increased disposal also reduces landfill space, and the Illinois EPA estimates that the Chicago Metropolitan Area has only five years capacity remaining. The result is that our garbage is being trucked ever longer distances, wasting energy and creating air pollution.

In 1988, the State of Illinois passed a law requiring cities to recycle and compost at least 25 percent of all waste. Mayor Daley's response was the creation of the blue bag program. Begun in 1995, it requires Chicagoans to buy blue bags for their recycling and yard waste but then mix those bags with their garbage in a single bin. Not only is most of the recycling lost, but almost all our yard waste is being mixed with garbage, too. The resulting so-called "screened yard waste" is currently being sent to an out-of-state landfill. There, the City claims it will be "composted" by being combined with liquid run-off (called leachate) and then used to cover the landfill itself!

More effective programs to recycle waste exist. For example, multi-bin programs used by most other cities recycle and compost anywhere from 20-50 percent of their waste stream. Big cities from Milwaukee to New York City to San Francisco offer programs like this that use separate containers and trucks for the materials collected. They offer separate yard waste collections and many even give back compost to households to use in their gardens! Ten years is long enough - it's time for Chicago to catch up and stop wasting our resources. For more information go to www.chicagorecycling.org

Ask Mayor Daley to improve recycling and reduce pollution and waste by dumping the blue bag and implementing a responsible multi-bin recycling program in Chicago. Then ask your friends and family to help out by forwarding this email to them.

To take action, click on the following link or paste it into your web browser:

pirg.org/alerts/route.asp


Sincerely,

Rebecca D. Stanfield
Illinois PIRG Environmental Attorney
RebeccaS (at) illinoispirg.org
www.IllinoisPIRG.org

P.S. Thanks again for your support. Please feel free to share this e-mail with your family and friends.