At last, Chicago is giving up on its failed Blue Bag recycling program. Since 1995 the city has placed recyclables in blue garbage bags, which are collected with regular household garbage and only separated at garbage transfer stations.
After being compacted and mixed with waste there was often little usable material to recycle, but perhaps worse was that citizens had little faith that the materials were actually recycled, so that few participated in the program.
For the last year, several wards have been using separate blue bins to collect recyclables, a system which will eventually be rolled out across the entire city in the next year or so when the budget allows. Until then Chicago will have no recycling program at all for most of its waste.
Chicago Tribune story.