English practice 25
Do Blue Bags Make a Green City?
In 1995, Chicago implemented its Blue Bag recycling program. This program was different from virtually any other throughout the world, particularly for a city of Chicago's size. Muncie, Indiana instituted a similar program, but it is a much smaller city than Chicago.61 Chicago's idea was that you could throw your recycling away with your garbage as part of a62 program that was new to the city.62 All you'd have to do is make sure that when you threw your recycling into the dumpster or put it out on the street, it was in a blue garbage bag rather than a standard white or black bag. Many embraced the program because they felt it wouldn't inconvenience residents and the process would be similar to the normal garbage collection residents were used to;63 collecting all the recyclable waste into a bag, remembering the day for pickup, and then leaving the bag on the curb or in a dumpster. These bags would be picked up by the normal garbage collectors, and eventually, the blue bags would be removed from the garbage and rerouted to various recycling facilities.
This program hummed along, and was still going strong when I moved to Chicago. The city's goal was to improve its 13?19% recycling rate to the point where, of all the waste collected, 25% of it would be recycled. In 2005, according to a report by city officials, they64 had reached that goal, and many believed that Chicago was becoming a truly "green" city. Unfortunately, independent researchers told a much different tale. According to their estimates, as little as 9% of the city's waste was being recycled and the rates of recycling among residents were still around levels they had been in the 1980s. In65 other words, you could say that not much changes.66
[1] So what was wrong for67 this program? [2] The Chicago area is not overwhelmed by landfill issues as are some other major cities, so many people who live in the city didn't think recycling or diverting waste was all that important. [3] Then there were the actual mechanics of running68 the program. [4]?The biggest problem was probably the residents' lack of interest. [5]?These turned out to be much more complicated than either the city or its various contractors ever expected. [6]?Imagine, for example, the magnitude of manpower and financial investment with such a requiring69 to pull these select bags out of the more than 5 million tons of garbage Chicagoans dump every year! [7]?What happens to all the bags that70 rip in transit, with all those recyclables then mixed in with all the other garbage? 
In May 2008, the city decided to discontinue its Blue Bag program and replace72 it with a new one. The cloud had a silver lining, though: the controversy surrounding the Blue Bag program, which was getting press alongside larger mounting concerns about global warming and other environmental issues, made the city's residents and business owners more aware of the importance of recycling. Even during the Blue Bag program, a trip to one of the city's public recycling centers were73 proof that Chicagoans were interested in recycling. Many times I'd go and, because the centers were so lacking in74 recyclables, I'd have to take my recyclables to another center that was not so full. Now, to replace the Blue Bag program, the city has begun to institute the Blue Bin program, and there are many of us whose75 hope that this program can right the wrongs of the last program and make Chicago the truly green city we know it can be.