You live in Chicago.
You drank this water.
Now what happens to it?
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Drop it in a black cart and it goes straight to...
...a landfill. No rescue for recyclables. 800,000 tons of material ended up in black carts in 2017 — that's more than 90% of the residual waste stream.
Drop it in your blue cart — but what else is in there?
There can't be:
If there are non-recyclables in your bin, the whole bin could be labeled “contaminated” and…
…sent to a landfill.
If your bin isn't labeled contaminated, it goes to the recycling sorting facility.
Non-recyclables are sent to a landfill.
Items that pass a second sort are actually recycled.