Shiny, happy city: What it takes to keep Chicago clean

"The city does a fantastic job with downtown," said Ty Tabing, executive director of the Loop Alliance, a Loop promotional group. "Chicago is one of the cleanest big cities in the world; in short, that's the feedback that we get."

With the International Olympic Committee just days away from making its decision, RedEye explored the city's efforts to shine its crown jewel, the Loop area.

It takes a small army to keep Chicago's central business district pristine. One, many times two, street sweepers tackle the downtown arterial streets twice a day, on average, while 10 to 20 workers typically are assigned to pick up garbage on the street daily. Each residential ward typically sees one street sweeper each day, Smith said.

Residential sanitation efforts are coordinated by the individual ward offices. The Loop community area--defined by the city as south and east of the Chicago River and north of Roosevelt Road--is part of the 2nd and 42nd Wards.

Separately, the Bureau of Street Operations maintains the area bounded by Lake Michigan on the east, Halsted Street on the west, North Avenue on the north and Cermak Road on the south. Services include hand sweeping of sidewalks and streets, emergency street cleaning, emptying of waste baskets, limited power washing and removing snow, ice and graffiti.

On any given day shift, there are anywhere from 18 to 38 Loop operation workers, Smith said.

Tabing said business owners take it upon themselves to maintain their piece of the Loop. For the last decade, the Loop Alliance has had a State Street cleaning program--Clean Slate for State Street, which employs workers to remove snow and regularly power wash sidewalks. State Street residents pay for their services with extra taxes, typically about 5 percent of their property tax assessment, Tabing said.

And tourists seem to notice. Former tour guide Michael LaRusso said tourists--typically from the East Coast and Brazil--regularly ask where Chicago ships its garbage because the city looks so clean.

"Definitely, most of the tourists of the cities from the East Coast say for the size of the city, it keeps quite clean," said LaRusso, tour manager of the Chicago Tour Guides Institute, which supplies local tour guides and interpreters to meeting planners.

But tourists from California, Oregon and Florida tend not to be impressed with Chicago's cleanliness and instead boast of their own city's sanitary conditions, LaRusso said.

Indeed, Chicago isn't known as the Queen of Clean nationally. Forbes failed to mention the Windy City in its list last year of the 10 cleanest American cities. And Chicago also rated dead last in Reader's Digest's 2005 list of the 50 cleanest American cities. The City that Works scored few points in water and air quality but ranked moderately well in terms of sanitation.

Chicago's air and water quality fared much better in a recent report evaluating the four cities battling to host the Olympics, but the city's overall cleanliness wasn't mentioned.

And yet, a city's cleanliness is an important factor in whether the city will land the Games, Olympics researcher Stephen Alexander told RedEye.

"We didn't see the cleanliness as a major issue but obviously if you're going to put on a good face and have the committee come, you want the streets clean," said Alexander, a DePaul senior research fellow who has been studying Chicago's Olympics plan for two years. "The research shows all host cities kind of clean up areas."

Blue bin group

Loop residents, don't be blue--there's plenty of recycling options in your neighborhood.

» 40: Approximate number of recycling containers on State, Dearborn and Clark Streets from Wacker Drive to Congress Street, according to Matt Smith, spokesman for the Department of Streets and Sanitation. The area does not have residential blue cart service.

» There's no recycling drop-off center in the central business district. The closest center is the location at 1758 S. Clark St., on the Near South Side.

» 64.95 tons: More than 1,000 recycling bins were at the Taste of Chicago, resulting in 64.95 tons of recyclables, according to the Mayor's Office of Special Events. One recycling truck and two roll-off compactors were used each day for recyclables. Pickup was completed at least once daily.

» Recycling during the Taste of Chicago was transported to the city's Material Recovery Facility in South Lawndale for processing.

Sweep stakes
Make it a clean sweep--here's what you need to know about sweeper cells in the Loop.

» Street sweeping frequency varies within the Loop area but on average, the arterial streets see two sweepers daily, said Matt Smith, spokesman for the city Department of Streets and Sanitation.

» Sweepers tackle the residential streets in the northwest corner of the area, from Wells Street to the Chicago River in the 42nd Ward, two to five times a month from April through November, according to schedules posted on cityofchicago.org.

That's rubbish

Ever wonder how the city keeps downtown so spick-and-span? RedEye talked trash with the Department of Streets and Sanitation.

» A section south of the Loop, from Harrison Street to Roosevelt Road and Wabash Avenue to Wells Street in the 2nd Ward, sees street sweepers only one to two times a month on the residential streets and not at all in May, according to the online schedule.

» The department mostly handles street garbage, not residential trash, in the Loop, spokesman Matt Smith said. High-rises and condos downtown have a private service take care of their garbage.

» 500: There are approximately 500 garbage cans throughout the downtown area, Smith said. About 10 to 20 workers are assigned to pick up garbage on the street. There is one truck assigned for each trash pickup shift, with a total of two shifts daily.

» 4: There also are four solar-powered trash compactors in the downtown area that hold up to four times more garbage than their traditional counterparts, Smith said.

» Garbage and recycling from the downtown areas are typically transported to the Allied Waste facility at 1622 W. Medill Ave. in Lincoln Park or the Planet Recovery transfer station at 1850 W. Carroll St. on the Near West Side.

» Garbage pickup is handled separately for street festivals and large events downtown. The city has a contract for garbage services with Nationwide Janitorial Services for cleanup for the city's summer festivals including Gospel, Blues, Jazz, Celtic and Country Fests, the Outdoor Film Festival, Air and Water Show, Viva and the Taste of Chicago.

» At $817,000 per year, the three-year contract with Nationwide Janitorial is less than the previous janitorial service (Chicago Contract Cleaning), which was for just over a million dollars, according to the Mayor's Office of Special Events.