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Blue-Bag Substitute Affordable, Group Says: Study Pan's Expense of Chicago Program

Posted on: Monday, 10 April 2006, 09:00 CDT

By Laurie Cohen and Dan Mihalopoulos, Chicago Tribune

Apr. 10--Chicago would not have to spend much more to replace Mayor Richard Daley's controversial blue-bag recycling program with a more effective system, according to a new study by an environmental group.

The report from the Chicago Recycling Coalition found that the blue-bag program is "one of the most expensive and wasteful" recycling systems in the country. The group concludes that it "won't break the bank" to switch to an approach used in the Chicago suburbs and in most other major cities.

The study counters the Daley administration's insistence that the 10-year-old blue-bag program is economical and that the city cannot afford to change its recycling system. Until Friday, when the Tribune contacted officials for reaction to the study, the city had declined to provide an estimate of how much a better approach might cost.

The recycling coalition said a new program could cost $15.2 million a year, compared with the $14.5 million on blue bag in 2005.

A spokesman for the Streets and Sanitation Department, which runs the program, said Friday that operating a new system would cost between $15 million and $25 million a year. And the spokesman, Matt Smith, said start-up costs for new trucks and recycling bins would be at least $50 million.

Under the blue-bag program, residents are asked to buy blue plastic bags and put recyclables such as cans, plastic and paper in them. The bags are thrown into trucks with the rest of the garbage.

Only 13 percent of households participate in blue bag, according to a city study. Chicago recycles less than 8 percent of the garbage that it collects, far short of the 25 percent goal that Daley set when he began the program.

The recycling coalition and other local environmentalists long have called on the city to kill the program. Those groups say the city should let households put recyclables in bins that are placed curbside and collected separately from garbage.

Those hopes have been bolstered by a year-old pilot recycling program in the Beverly neighborhood. More than 80 percent of the 700 homes in the test area participate in the experiment, and about 20 percent of their garbage is recycled.

The recycling coalition surveyed officials in other cities to compare with Chicago's recycling costs. The study concluded that Chicago spends $190 for every ton of material recycled, much more than any of the other six cities surveyed, including Denver ($35), Boston ($62), New York ($94) and Madison, Wis., ($121).

According to the study, Chicago's costs are so high because few residents use blue bags. Most of the city's recycling is done at privately operated sorting centers, where all the garbage is piled onto conveyor belts and workers and machines pull out recyclables.

A curbside program under which recyclables were collected every other week--rather than weekly, as in the Beverly pilot--would cost about $15.2 million a year, the study concludes. That estimate is based on a 15 percent recycling rate and accounts for expected savings on landfill fees.

The city got a state grant for new recycling bins used in the Beverly test, and the recycling coalition says officials should be able to get additional state funds or recruit corporate sponsors for a citywide effort.

Camp Dresser & McKee, a consultant to the city's Environment Department, has been paid more than $1 million in the last year for work that includes an analysis of alternative recycling systems such as curbside programs, records show. City officials have refused to disclose the consultant's findings.

Allied Waste Transportation, a politically connected contractor, operates the city's sorting centers, with longtime Daley friend Fred Barbara as a consultant. Allied and its blue-bag subcontractors are important campaign donors to the pro-Daley Hispanic Democratic Organization, which federal prosecutors recently said was part of an illegal hiring scheme at City Hall.

lcohen@tribune.com

dmihalopoulos@tribune.com

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Copyright (c) 2006, Chicago Tribune

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Source: Chicago Tribune

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