Chicago Suburbs Have a “Wishcycling” Problem

Chicago-based WGN 9’s investigative news team rode along with one residential recycling truck’s route and found that 20 to 25 percent of most of the loads picked up are unrecyclable.

A representative for Republic Services, the hauler for dozens of Chicago suburbs, told WGN 9 that “wishcycling” in the area is creating a contamination problem in the recycling stream. According to the report, the contamination problem in south suburban Posen is so bad the village president is scrapping the suburb’s recycling program effective in October.

WGN 9 has more details:

Recycling needs to be rebooted. That’s the opinion of experts as commodity prices crash and many residents still can’t recycle right.

WGN Investigates rode along one recycling truck’s route in Oak Lawn and followed it to the yard to see how much of the material residents put in their green carts is actually recyclable.

“Believe it or not we get a lot of diapers,” said Pete Keller of Republic Services which handles waste hauling for dozens of Chicago suburbs.

Read the full article here.