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Curious City

This Episode Is Garbage

Curious City

WBEZ Chicago

Investigation, Chicago, Radio, Arts, Society & Culture, Public, Education, Curious, City

4.6661 Ratings

🗓️ 17 October 2024

⏱️ 12 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Chicago collects thousands of tons of garbage each year. We answer some questions about garbage, and follow an all-women collection crew on the job.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

All I've been thinking about all week is garbage. I mean, I just can't stop thinking about it.

0:05.0

I'm Maggie Sivitt, Curious City's digital and engagement producer. And that was a clip from the 1989 film Sex, Lies, and Videotape. In the opening scene, Andy McDowell's character tells her therapist that she's having these visions of garbage cans

0:21.8

overflowing endlessly. I've gotten real concerned over what's going to happen with all the garbage.

0:28.5

I've also been thinking a lot about garbage lately. And it seems like many of our listeners have,

0:33.7

too. We've gotten all kinds of garbage-related questions, from people wondering how

0:39.7

quickly garbage trucks take to fill up, to what it's like to collect garbage for the city.

0:44.7

You're going to see roadies and, yeah, so if you're scared of that, you can't be scared

0:49.4

because they're scared of you. They're going to rob. So I hopped on a truck with an all-women

0:53.5

crew on the job. But first, I met up with one listener

0:57.3

to take a look at her trash and answer some of your garbage-related questions. That's coming up.

1:16.8

Recently, I met up with Curious City question asker, Diane Judge.

1:22.2

And you can see my melon rinds and my corn husks and a few currents there.

1:24.4

Let's say looks like a shriveled pepper.

1:30.3

She's a lifelong Chicagoan and a retired nurse practitioner. She's an avid composter, gardener, and caretaker of butterflies. You can't use the dining room table in summer

1:36.9

because it has monarchs in various stages on it. She's lived on the same block in the Ravenswood

1:43.5

neighborhood for about 40 years.

1:45.8

When I met up with her, she'd been saving her garbage for me.

1:49.0

I had to put the garbage out on the back porch because I was inhaling fruit flies.

1:55.9

Dan is someone who's really mindful of what she throws away.

1:59.8

She composts what she can.

2:01.8

Vegetable peelings, fruit peels, and anything that will break down. And recycles what she can.

2:11.5

Paper, recyclable plastic, although recycling plastic isn't the greatest.

...

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