Chicago’s Metropolitan Mayors Caucus launches recycling education campaign

Leaders with the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus (MMC), a partnership of 275 local governments in the Chicago metropolitan area, have announced the kickoff of Feed the Cart, an initiative MMC calls the largest recycling education and improvement campaign in Illinois’ history.

The recycling campaign will cover six of the state’s most populous counties: Cook, which includes Chicago and has a population of 5 million; DuPage, with a population of 900,000; Kane, with a population of 500,000; Lake, with a population of 700,000; McHenry, with a population of 300,000; and Will, with a population of 700,000.

The campaign aims to increase recycling tonnage across the Chicago metro region by 15 percent before 2030.

“Every bottle, box and can we recycle brings us one step closer to a sustainable Chicagoland where both the environment and our communities thrive,” Geneva Mayor and Chairman of MMC’s Environment and Energy Committee Kevin Burns says. “We are excited to introduce our campaign that will remind everyone how simple and important it is to recycle properly. By increasing our recycling rate, we not only conserve natural resources but also generate significant economic benefits, supporting thousands of jobs and injecting billions of dollars into our economy.”

The announcement came during a press conference at Rosemont, Illinois-based LRS’ Exchange MRF.

“The Feed the Cart campaign we’re rolling out here at LRS today will inspire all Chicagoland residents to want to do their part,” LRS Senior Vice President of Environmental Health & Safety and Sustainability Patrick Whalen says.

MMC and its Chicago Metro Recycling Education and Outreach (REO) campaign partners—including the Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County (SWANCC) and the Solid Waste Agency of Lake County (SWALCO) as well as DuPage, Kane, McHenry, and Will counties—were awarded a $2 million grant in 2024 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to promote recycling education and outreach.

In 2024, the amount of regional recyclable materials collected totaled nearly 573,000 tons, while the diversion rates in the Chicago metropolitan area are stalled at 30-35 percent.

While this is on par with the national average of 32 percent, MMC says it is not sufficient to meet either the EPA’s National Recycling Goal of 50 percent by 2030 or the metro counties’ individual diversion goals. In addition, data shows that contamination in Chicago’s recycling stream is a significant problem, which increases the cost of recycling for municipalities and residents, MMC says.

The goals of the program include engaging with Chicago metropolitan area residents by promoting the environmental and economic benefits of recycling, educating residents to reduce contamination and increase recycling rates at the community level, encouraging residents and businesses to buy products made from recycled material or packaged in postconsumer recycled content.

Education tactics for the Feed the Cart campaign will include marketing, a new website—FeedTheCart.org—and social media presence, advertising, public relations and grassroots, community-level outreach, MMC says.

Examples of grassroots activities that align with the Feed the Cart campaign were outlined at the press conference, including boosting curbside recycling in North Chicago funded through an MMC grant and a partnership between the city of Chicago’s Department of Streets & Sanitation and the Chicago Transit Authority to implement public service announcements on trains and buses featuring Feed the Cart’s mascot, Loop.

MMC will measure the impact of the three-year campaign and issue a report with its results upon completion in 2027.