2125 W. North Ave. The Materials Reuse and Recycling program, part of the Center for Neighborhood Technology's Campaign for Sustainable Chicago, works to enable Chicago to shift from waste generation and disposal to policies and strategies that promote conservation and recycling of materials. A key component of the Center's Materials Reuse and Recycling program is to ensure that the environmental and economic benefits of the program accrue to the local, lower-income communities where recycling facilities are most likely to appear. The program works to shape federal policy to expand opportunities at the grass roots level, and it works locally to demonstrate that materials conservation can be an effective engine of equitable economic growth. In addition to the environmental benefits, the Center works to demonstrate that recycling offers economic advantages as well.
Recycling creates more jobs than conventional waste disposal methods.
Additional jobs can be created locally by attracting industries that will turn recovered materials into finished products. Essentially, recycling is economic development. By capturing the value of material that was once thrown away, recycling can cycle money and jobs back into any community creating neighborhood wealth and opportunity, even in the poorest communities. The Center co-convened and chairs this alliance of recycling and environmental organizations that is seeking to promote materials conservation as an engine of economic growth to the Federal government. The Alliance is pushing for the abolition of tax and other preferences for the extraction of raw materials to make recycling and reuse industries more competitive.