Community Partnership | Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation
In March 2024, Chicago’s Department of Streets and Sanitation (DSS) partnered with FPI to promote recycling of clean and empty paper cups and other takeout containers. This campaign provides residents with an extra round of outreach and education.
Chicago began accepting paper cups in its recycling program in 2023 after working with FPI to engage with the material recovery facilities (MRFs) sorting the city’s recycled materials. FPI previously partnered with two of Chicagoland’s haulers, Groot Industries and LRS to add paper cups to their accepted materials list and to conduct outreach to their residential customers. You can read more about those efforts in the Groot Case Study and the LRS Summary.
In 2024, Chicago DSS worked with FPI to create messaging and graphics that convey the ability to recycle paper cups alongside other, already accepted take-out containers, including—paper bags, molded fiber carriers and cartons, and aluminum foil food packaging. Ads instructing residents to put empty and clean takeout containers loose in their recycling carts are posted in Chicago Transit Authority buses and stations, on digital billboards, and even during movie previews in local theaters.
More than 2.6 million residents in the city of Chicago are seeing messages around town and on social media that ask them not to trash their takeout packaging, but to recycle it.
Foodservice Packaging Materials Accepted
Paper cups*
Paper bags
Molded fiber food packaging
Alumninum Foil Food Packaging
*New items added during partnership
