WBEZ | trash

Cleaning up Chicago’s wide, romantic beaches

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 08:30:00 -0500

Volunteers for an Adopt-A-Beach program are headed to Chicago-area beaches to clean up trash and debris starting this weekend.

And those beaches are bigger than usual this year due to record-low water levels over the winter. After hitting an all-time low in January, Lake Michigan is creeping back up, but U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projections show the lake could still dip below its 1965 low water records without a lot of rain.

That said, it’s been raining a decent amount this week, which has a different potential consequence for beach sweepers: combined sewer overflow and runoff can mean more trash along the shoreline.

Louise Kulaga, an eighth-grade science teacher at Gurrie Middle School in LaGrange, is taking a group of middle-schoolers to clean up 12th Street Beach and North Avenue Beach this spring. Cleanups involve picking up trash, recycling, conducting basic sampling and testing for bacteria in the water. Shallow waters along the shore could lead to higher bacteria counts this summer.

Kulaga says the low water means a wider beach, but not necessarily more trash. That depends on weather conditions, and how recently there’s been a beach party. In past years, she and her students have already seen a lot.

“There’s always some little bit of drug paraphernalia here and there,” she said. “And diapers. The back seats of a car. A totem pole, a piece of a totem pole.”

But that’s not even the best of it. A couple years ago they found a green wine bottle with a message in it. Kulaga convinced the principal, who was out with the group, to be the one to read the message to the kids. She was a little worried about what it might say. But it turned out to be rated PG, PG-13 at worst.

“It was a little dramatic, it was about someone breaking up with a boyfriend or a girlfriend, we couldn’t quite tell,” she said. “And they were purging their feelings into Lake Michigan.”

Teams of volunteers will start combing Chicago’s wide, romantic beaches this weekend; anyone interested can join in public cleanups through the Great Lakes Alliance.

Lewis Wallace is a Pritzker Journalism Fellow at WBEZ. Follow him @lewispants.

Where does our garbage go?

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 09:01:00 -0500

In late May, the Illinois House approved a measure that would prevent any new landfills from opening, or any existing landfills from expanding, inside Cook County. The proposal has already been approved by the State Senate, and now it’s awaiting Gov. Quinn’s signature. We wondered why the state was worried about landfill legislation at this time.

It turns out there’s a tousle going on on the southeast side of Chicago. The dispute is between community groups, environmentalists, and some pols on one side, and a company called Land and Lakes and other pols on the other side. Ground zero is 138th and Cottage Grove. It’s actually the city of Dolton, and it’s where Land and Lakes operates a huge landfill. It’s a stone’s throw from the Altgeld Gardens housing projects, and just to the west of the Hegewisch neighborhood. Land and Lakes wants to expand to an 86 acre site that currently belongs to the city.

But back in 1984, the Chicago City Council put the kibosh on new or expanded landfills. In 2005, the City Council re-upped those same measures for an additional 20 years. So the company dangled some large numbers in front of Dolton’s board. Cash the village would supposedly receive if it were to annex the 86 acres from Chicago and allow Land and Lakes their expansion. The Tribune said the number quoted was $36 million over 25 years that Dolton would bring in thanks to the expansion. That’s a lot of dough for a village that could really use it. A Cook County judge has already ruled in favor of Land and Lakes. We’ll have to see what happens next as things work their way through the courts.

But the drama playing out down at the bend of the Little Calumet River got us thinking...most of us have no idea where our garbage goes. Yeah, a couple of guys in a really smelly truck come down our alleys-or our streets if you live in the suburbs-and then it’s gone. But how far does it travel? Where does it end up? How long does it take to get there? Can it just keep going to that same place forever? Even as humans expand our ability and desire to recycle, we continue to generate refuse. How will we think about its disposal in the future?

Wednesday on Afternoon Shift, we get some answers from David Lee. He’s a Ph.D. Candidate in Urban Studies and Planning, and a graduate researcher attached to the SENSEable City Laboratory at MIT. Back in 2009 the lab did a project called Trash Track, where tiny sensors were attached to all manner of people’s garbage. There's also some easy-to-understand but eye-opening charts that Derek Thompson recently posted in The Atlantic.

Emanuel considers a revamp of Chicago's garbage collection system

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 18:11:00 -0500

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Friday he might change the way the city collects garbage. According to Emanuel, Chicago spends too much on trash pick-up - more than $200 a ton - compared to cities like Los Angeles or Philadelphia.

Currently, the city collects trash using a ward-by-ward program, but Emanuel said the city could save $60 million by switching to a city-wide grid system.

"Can we do it better, cheaper, and more effective? And, this is one way to look at it. Now, if somebody has a better way to find $60 million in savings, the door is open, the suggestion box is open, bring it forward," he said.

The mayor he would not eliminate the ward superintendents, who deal with sanitation concerns in each ward. He called them "the most responsive element to a community," and said he would consider creating a new position to monitor the grid system

Emanuel reiterated his plan to revamp the city's recycling program as well, citing his desire for a "comprehensive policy" for trash collection.

"At every level of government, our city is stuck in decades' old policies we have not modernized for the 21st century," said Emanuel.

Film reviews: Waste Land and Mumblecore

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 14:17:00 -0600

One of the documentaries considered for an Oscar on Sunday, Feb. 27 was Waste Land. The film documents a project to turn trash from a landfill on the outskirts of the Rio de Janeiro into art – and perhaps create social change as well. Waste Land screens Friday, Mar.11 at Northwestern University’s Block Cinema in Evanston. Eight Forty-Eight film critic Christy LeMaster spoke with Alison Cuddy about the film, she began with a little background, and the filmmaker’s approach.

LeMaster and Cuddy also reviewed the “mumblecore” mystery-comedy, Cold Weather.