Celebrating 35 Years: Chicago Recycling Coalition
35 Facts for CNT’s 35 Years: Each week we’ll expand on one fun fact. Enjoy!
#5 Chicago Recycling Coalition
When most people think about recycling, they think about the good feeling of separating glass, plastic, paper, etc., from their waste so that new materials and products can be created from old ones. It’s a pretty clean process, and one that can, in many homes, be done without much thought at all.
Recycling has certainly evolved. In Chicago, recycling is still a work in progress, but it—like the organizations that advocate for it—has come a long way.
The Chicago Recycling Coalition (CRC) is one organization that has been at the forefront of championing how recyclables are handled in the City of Chicago. In fact, before CRC was CRC, it was CAWD (Coalition for Appropriate Waste Disposal), and it worked on some pretty dirty projects. CNT was right there with them.
For example, CAWD/CRC and CNT built strong alliances with several neighborhood and environmental organizations to successfully battle against waste incinerators in Chicago’s lower-income neighborhoods, and to pressure the City to impose a moratorium on new landfills.
The controversial Blue Bag program, formed in the 1990s, was challenged by the CRC due to its cost and unproven methodology. Blue Bags got mixed in with garbage and were hand-sorted, where recyclables were often overlooked or contaminated. The public perception that the program was ineffective was proven by CRC’s research. In 2006, the city officially dropped the blue bags and began introducing “blue carts” for recyclables. CRC hailed this switch to source-separated recycling, but service has yet to be extended to all of Chicago’s residents.
In 2005, the first “blue bins” (that we see in many Chicago neighborhoods now) were piloted in the 19th ward, where they were collected by separate trucks. The blue bins picked up steam and have been adopted in many more wards but are yet to reside on all of Chicago’s curbs.
Recycling is an instructive example of the CNT philosophy of “hidden assets.” Garbage is not trash—it can be captured and repurposed as a raw material with real value. Supporting this type of resource efficiency has long been a focus of CNT efforts, and several CNT and CNT affiliate employees have been closely involved with CRC projects or served on the CRC board over the years, including two as of today’s post.
The work of promoting equitable, efficient, and environmentally friendly cities continues, both for CNT and allied organizations like the Chicago Recycling Coalition. We’re glad you’re with us in the fight.
We’re celebrating CNT’s 35 years of impact on sustainable urban development through 35 weeks of posts like this one. If you have a story or picture from our past, please share it with Anjuli@cnt.org. Thanks!
CNT’s work is made possible, in part, through generous support from individual donors. Please click here to make a gift in honor of our 35th anniversary.
Next week: #6 Neighborhood Early Warning System
