apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

My Lincoln Square alley broke out in these a few weeks ago, along with a fridge magnet showing what can be placed in them.

It's pretty great, and I like the splash of color in the alleyway.

It was a wake-up call to me to realize how much of my daily trash is now officially recyclable. I'd say it's about a 2-1 volume ratio in favor of recyclable junk. Go blue carts!

And Evan doesn't need to use the blue bags anymore. No bags, or any recyclable bags will do.

My neighborhood has had these for awhile now (Ukranian Village), the problem is that they only pick them up once every two weeks. They fill up and start to overflow.

So I hope you are listening City of Chicago, how about picking up once a week?

I agree with needing more frequent pickups. In fact I'd be better supported by one black cart and two blues. The mass of our trash is largely paper, PET, and cardboard.

However, this is getting people like me to recycle (I never used the blue bag method), and it must be a resource-intensive process on the receiving end, so I am willing to be patient. I devote my efforts in the meantime to packing as much as possible tetris-style into the blue bin.

Reading this makes me happy to live where I do (Toronto, Canada) where we have weekly compost pick-up, in addition to a long-standing recycling programme (garbage is 2x month). Waste reduction is so important and I think municipalities have to make it easy and accessible if people are going to participate widely.