By Ed Lowe
Senior Writer
In a time of growing shortages and increasing concern for the environment, hardly anyone would object to the concept of recycling. The City of Chicago has a program in place which encourages the segregation of elements of normal city waste into three categories — paper, glass and metal cans. It's called the "Blue Bag Program." Yet, few residents outside those in single family housing are aware of the effort by the City to be environmentally conscious. The program is directed toward, but largely ignored, by high rise residents.
By asking householders to purchase inexpensive plastic bags in different colors, and by using those bags to hold debris, the City hopes to be able to identify the different categories of waste and sell it to recyclers.
There are several obvious flaws with the program. First, the need for residents to purchase the bags — though some are made available at chain grocery stores like Whole Foods, Walgreens and Dominick's — is a deterrent. Second, asking people to cooperate with a program which does not display any material advantage to them is simply a turn-off for many busy city dwellers. And, finally, many who are aware of the program approach the issue with a cynicism born of living in the city. They ask, "Who's making money from this project?"
Obviously, there is profit being realized from a city-wide effort such as this Blue Bag program. The waste haulers and the recyclers who pay them for delivering the filled bags to depots certainly are in the action to make a profit as is only right. However, none of that profit is realized by the people who actually go to the trouble of placing their refuse in the bags. Some people belives that incentives will entice people to fully cooperate in a program of this size.
One answer to this is applied in New York where, instead of paying people to collect and sort their refuse, the City charges substantially higher garbage hauling charges for the unsorted refuse. That won't happen in Chicago, according to Mayor Daley. While the program is a good idea and serves a public interest, Chicago still collects garbage from homeowners as a part of City services covered in the property tax. Thus, there is no way to penalize people who don't cooperate with the program.
In order to resolve this issue, one suggestion would have Chicago reconsider how it charges for garbage removal. A certain percentage of each real estate tax dollar is used for garbage hauling. If the taxes were to be reduced by this amount and that revenue replaced by one charged for the removal of garbage (except for the hauling of the recyclables) perhaps another form of equity would evolve. Rental apartment buildings and office building pay now for the removal of trash. Individual homeowners and co-op and condo dwellers do not. Thus, by spreading the burden of the cost of garbage removal among all the users of this service and by crediting those who are involved in the Blue Bag recycling program, perhaps we could get the best of both worlds — a cleaner environment and, at the same time, a bargain created by the recycling of glass, paper and metal cans.
Education is only a partial answer to the encouragement of citizens to participate in the Blue Bag program. Public awareness is another part of the equation. In many ways, however, Chicagoans can find some sort of incentive for following the rules of the program. Whether that takes the form of reduced taxation, of actual payment to participants, or some combination of the two remains to be seen. But, until there is a reason for people to go out of their way to amass bags of garbage, there seems to be little cooperation with the City's program. It's time to begin thinking outside the box — or the bag as the case may be. |
