pick up programs (Block Bins, The Urban Canopy, Collective Resource) with participants noting that "the service areas of many of the smaller food scrap haulers appears to be expanding", thus indicating an increase in demand for these services. Although 70 communities in our region offer municipal compost pick up services, comments on this topic were general rather than specifying the name of the hauler or municipality offering these services. Comments do, however, reflect the patchwork of collection services being offered in the region. Processing infrastructure is limited with few large-scale commercial composting facilities located within the city limits (Green Era Anaerobic Digester, Denali 3 with other facilities located well beyond city limits in places like Romeoville, Grayslake, and DeKalb. New efforts to bolster infrastructure included the City of Chicago’s free food scrap composting pilot at six community gardens, seasonal food scrap ride along programs with yard waste haulers, and that SWALCO was purchasing bins for residents in Lake County to purchase at a reduced cost and use. It was also noted that UIC is researching a new way to process food scraps using black soldier flies. A list of comments on Current Efforts in Infrastructure are displayed in Table 5, Appendix 1. POLICY current efforts were also not well-documented by attendees. Many comments lacked a clear relationship to policy or could be reclassified as infrastructure needs or policy opportunities. This may demonstrate a weakness of the group and/or a gap that needs to be filled in building a culture of composting in greater Chicagoland. This may also reflect who was in the room as only 13% of attendees identified as government representatives or policy makers. As noted above, compost laws and policies in the City of Chicago are not always understood or well-enforced. In the greater Chicagoland area, laws on composting are an unevenly distributed patchwork. Attendees also struggled to differentiate between policy and infrastructure barrier (a “chicken-or-egg" question of what should come first, policy or infrastructure). Specific policies mentioned included the 1990 State of Illinois Yard Waste Ban , the Chicago Compost Ordinance, and efforts to allow landscape waste processors to accept food scraps . It was also noted that Illinois Food Scrap & Composting Coalition has a Policy Committee. Efforts that could help build support for policy changes include the fact that in 2023 "the State of Illinois adopted Illinois Compost Awareness Week" and the "[Materials and Management Advisory Committee] MMAC 2021 Report to ILGA recommends looking @ permitting to facilitate allowing landscape waste facilities to accept & process food/organics."
A list of comments on Current Efforts in Policy are displayed in Table 6, Appendix 1.
3 Now Whole Earth Compost
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