This week I came across this article in the Chicago Reader about the garbage issues facing the city of Chicago. Honestly it was a little depressing. Mayor Daley is constantly up on his little pedestal saying how ‘green’ the city is and how he’s committed to making Chicago the greenest city in the country but we still don’t have a fully functional citywide recycling program. Granted he has implemented a few good ideas like having green roofs on some city buildings but overall he hasn’t done enough.

My neighborhood is one of the few that actually has the ‘Blue Bin‘ program but my building can’t get one because we have 13 units. We pay for our own recycling pick-up from an independent company. The problem is that we can’t recycle every thing that you can recycle using the city’s blue bin. We can only recycle #1 and #2 plastics in the shape of a bottle. No yogurt tubs, no margarine containers.. It’s not a huge deal but I think it’s silly that our neighbors who have 2 people living in their house get this huge cart to use and can recycle pretty much everything and we have to pay for a private company to come out to get our and we can only recycle a fraction of what they can.

And so I’m happy to have a little bit of power. I’m really happy my neighbors are excited about composting. I’m hoping it’s not too difficult to get people in the habit of doing it and doing it right.