The city of Naperville will extend its Food Scrap Composting and Clothing and Textile Recycling programs after the success of the pilot programs.
Both launched on June 2. Plans call for the composting initiative to continue through Dec. 12 and the textile program — run in partnership with DuPage County and recycling organizations re.tex and eWorks Electronic Services Inc. — to become permanent.
“These programs are really a response to what our residents are asking for,” said Ben Mjolsness, Naperville’s sustainability manager. “We’ve heard, ‘What can I do with clothing? What can I do with sheets? What can I do with towels? I don’t want to throw them away and have them be buried forever.’”
With the textile program, residents stay in their vehicle while staff unload items, per the city’s website. Since launching in late spring, it’s seen an average of 12 to 15 cars a day drop off unwanted items, “resulting in more than 26,800 pounds of material diverted from landfills,” according to the memo submitted to the city manager’s office.
Naperville has also been testing ways to keep food out of landfills, drawing inspiration from an already existing plan with waste and recycling contractor Groot Industries. The company will pick up items like yard and food waste from residents.
“I kept thinking, ‘Food waste is a big thing to target. It’s so nutrient dense and it creates methane in landfills. How can we find ways to promote this?’” Mjolsness said.
Groot and the city worked together on a food and yard waste collection program last fall, which included two locations at which residents could drop off their scraps for free. Over the course of 11 weeks, it collected about 228 carts of waste, but only 55 of them were food scraps, Mjolsness said.
It became clear to him that the city needed to run a program that was focused on food waste only, hence the Food Scraps Compost Program piloted over the summer. Over the first 12 weeks, residents filled “a combined total of 286 compost carts, each holding 65 gallons of food scraps, at both collection sites,” the memo said. Data for the final week is currently unavailable.
While the city is only extending its food waste pilot program to Dec. 12, Groot and the city will continue to evaluate the program to decide if the program should return next spring.
For now, Mjolsness said he is pleased with the success of both programs.
“I’ve actually received a lot of calls from residents this week and emails because we were planning to end both programs,” Mjolsness said. “I had people reaching out and being like, ‘Hey, is this still going on? I have all this stuff I’ve been saving.’”
The Clothing and Textile Recycling Program’s hours are 7 a.m. to 3 p.m weekdays at the Naperville Environmental Collection Campus at 156 Fort Hill Drive.
Food scraps can be dropped off at two locations: the CNG Station at 1720 W. Jefferson Ave. and the city-owned parking lot at 91st Street and Wolf’s Crossing Road. The Food Scrap Composting Program is available 24/7.
cstein@chicagotribune.com
