Keynote speech by Tracy Hubbard of Keep Evanston Beautiful at EEA 2005 Annual Meeting
Click here for a link to Keep Evanston Beautiful website.

Tracy Hubbard introduced Keep Evanston Beautiful ("KEB"). KEB endeavors to provide educational programs for all Evanston residents in order to promote the responsible use of our natural resources through the three 'R's - reduce, reuse, recycle. They also encourage the aesthetic improvement of our community through litter prevention and landscaping.

In addressing the topic for her keynote speech at the Annual Meeting of the EEA, Tracy said there should really be another category in the three R's of recycling (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle), which would be to purchase recycled items. She said 30% of the nation recycles, but over 50% of the households in Evanston recycle.

Tracy said she'd grown up in a household with a conservative attitude toward using natural resources, as she thought many of the people in the audience had, but she stressed how important it is to get more people involved in recycling.

Looking back in time, Tracy said she thought increased public awareness of the importance of recycling began in the 1980's, citing the news story of garbage barges cruising up and down the east and west coasts looking futilely for a place to dump their garbage. Here in Evanston, she pointed out two landfill sites, Lovelace Park and Mt. Trashmore, both now used as beautiful parks, but which have necessitated the removal of garbage from Evanston.

According to Tracy, there is landfill space still out there - she referred to southern Illinois, where a low per capita income makes landfill business attractive. But landfill availability should not mean we don't recycle, or reduce the importance of conserving natural resources. Recycling uses less energy - just 5% - of what manufacturing does. And less polution, though landfills are the greatest source of green pollution, and that methane resulting from decomposition in landfills will soon account for the equivalent of 36 million cars-worth of pollution.

She moved on to talk about why some items can be recylcled when others can't. Recycling needs and end-market, so it needs to be done affordably. The "best" recycling is done on the coasts, because the garbage cost is high. New York state is the largest recycler, with 3.7 million households. Although New York found it was cheaper to get rid of garbage than to recycle, when they considered the all-in cost, it wasn't, especially as the number of households recycling rises. In Chicago, only 256,000 households recycle, using the "Blue Bag" method. The problem is that recycling needs volume to work affordably. But Tracy pointed out that garbage and garbage collection doesn't pay for itself, and asked the question, Why should recycling be held to that standard?

Chicago's garbage now goes to Wisconsin, but when Wisconsin's landfills are full, we'll have to start taking our garbage to southern Illinois. Eventually, though, there won't be any place to take garbage, and we have to plan accordingly.

Tracy said the Evanston Recycling Center was operated profitably in the 1990's, but when costs rose and prices fell, it was closed, and then privatized. The good news is that there is a growing demand for recycled paper. You might think that the paperless office reduces the need for paper, but we've found that it doesn't. In fact, it has increased it. Where before the same piece of paper could be shared by many people, now each person has their own copy. This means that recycling paper is even more important.

Next, Tracy talked about the four categories of recycled materials in Evanston: Paper is recycled into paper products, so is an excellent recycling material. Cans are also recycled into cans, and are an excellent recycling material. Glass is more problematic, because breakage means that the supply gets contaminated and is harder to sort. Plastic is hardest, especially for use in food service, since it needs to be sanitized. So most plastic is reused for fleece and playground equipment.

Methodologies for recycling vary, according to Tracy. Evanston uses the single-sort system, which means everything goes into the same bin. This is the easiest for the consumer and for the collectors, and technology has progressed enormously to allow for easier sorting: Groot has a very advanced plant that uses a magnet to extract the metals and a fan to extract paper products. Tracy said some people express concern over whether recycled materials really are recycled, and she said absolutely, that for companies like Groot it was strictly a matter of economics, and that once again, the more people who recycle, the better.

Who can recycle varies by area, says Tracy. Here in Evanston, the city pays Groot to collect from up to 4-unit buildings, and condominium buildings if they are 75% or more owned. They are trying to make all buildings able to recycle. Two successful experiments have been tried in Skokie and Elgin. Skokie uses larger containers, the size of garbage bins, and saw an 8% increase in recycling. Elgin charged for removing extra garbage, but not for removing extra recycling, which resulted in a 50% increase in recycling and a 50% decrease in garbage removal.

Tracy closed her address by stressing again that recycling is not just about the Three Rs, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, but also about checking labels to make sure you are buying products made of recycled materials. Tracy is in her office (in the Ecology Center!) from Tuesday to Thursday, and can be reached through the Ecology Center's main number at 847-448-8256. For other questions on recycling, check out KEB's website.

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