Loop the Cart helping effort to enhance Lake County recycling: ‘Hopefully, it will … reach the entire household’

A small blue recycling bin with arms, eyes and a big mouth, known as Loop the Cart, is making its way around Waukegan to help educate residents about numerous items which can be recycled, those which cannot and some that require special handling.

A joint effort of the city of Waukegan, the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus and the Solid Waste Agency of Lake County (SWALCO), Waukegan Mayor Sam Cunningham said Friday the program is aimed at young people as well as adults.

“We believe Loop the Cart will help get schoolkids involved,” Cunningham said, “When his head pops up, it appeals to kids of that age. Hopefully, it will overlap and reach the entire household.”

Loop the Cart is currently making the rounds to different locations around Waukegan, including the city’s Public Works Department, letting people know what a recycling cart can consume and what requires a different form of disposal.

Cunningham said as discussions took place among members of the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, there was agreement on an effort to get more recyclable items recycled. Members engaged SWALCO, and the use of Loop the Cart was introduced to enhance the effort.

“We want to increase the collection of recyclables and reduce the contamination in Waukegan,” Cunningham said. “There are some people who were not recycling at all.”

Starting a program in October to make people aware of items which can be recycled, SWALCO began using people to walk door to door in Waukegan and Zion — it will do the same in North Chicago this spring — checking the bins and gently letting people know how to change what they put where.

Emily Wachter, a communications associate with SWALCO, said Friday that while the canvassing approach was making some progress, an additional method might be helpful. Enter Loop the Cart.

“It’s a positive message about recycling,” Wachter said of personifying Loop the Cart and when people should “feed” him. “The image of this campaign is to be helpful about what can be recycled. We’re showcasing it now in Waukegan.”

Wachter said Loop the Cart makes it clear what he can and cannot eat. Items like electronics, batteries, household chemicals, food, yard waste, clothing, textiles and tires are on the list of inedibles. There are still ways to keep them out of landfills.

Making a visit to Loop the Cart’s website — feedthecart.org — will give people a good idea of what can go in a recycle bin and what cannot. People in Highland Park can put food scraps and yard waste in a compost bin for pickup, but that service is not available in Waukegan.

Once at the website, Wachter said people can enter their town, and they will learn what kind of pickup is available and what they must do themselves if they want to keep things like electronics out of a landfill.

Electronics disposal sites are available at the Grayslake Public Works facility, on Half Day Road in Highland Patk and at LRS’s facility in Wauconda. Wachter said Waukegan residents can take tires to the public works facility there, but it is only for people who live in the city.

Individuals who need to get rid of household chemicals can go to a drop-off location in Gurnee. Wachter said SWALCO regularly has pop-up events for a variety of items that recycling haulers will not take.