Chicago’s blue bag recycling program: Garbage in, Garbage out

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

A pop quiz: When was Chicago supposed to run out of landfill capacity and we’d all have to start eating our garbage?

Answer? I don’t know exactly, but it was some time past, according to environmentalists who warned that in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s the city—and the rest of the country—would run out of places to dump the garbage. Adding to the crisis mentality were scary claims that leaking toxic substances and methane would poison and asphyxiate the populace. Somebody had to “do something,” and fast.

So, Chicago and other municipalities stampeded into adopting solid waste recycling programs. Americans suddenly were “educated” or forced into massive recycling efforts, separating paper, cans, plastic and other materials from the oozing, dripping, rotting stuff. Recycling became a matter of given truth in the bible of the caring, even though the net benefits were, and in some quarters still are, in doubt.

Among those jumping on the bandwagon was the then-recently elected Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, the first of his many attempts to establish his green credentials. But instead of going for a relatively simpler, less expensive and more effective model deployed by most other jurisdictions, Daley decided he had to do it His Way....

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