Fall fixes at Department of Streets and Sanitation
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Rats and compostable food scraps like pumpkins play a large role in improvements at the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation this year. Photo: Monica Eng/Axios
While critics trash other areas of city government, the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation is quietly chugging along and even expanding some services.
Why it matters: In this contentious election and budget season, it's nice to spotlight something improving in the city as DSS services ramp up this month.
🎃 Compost climbs: Last week, Streets and San expanded its food scrap drop-off program to 40 sites, including 21 libraries, noting that it's already diverted 2 million pounds of greenhouse gas-emitting food scraps from landfills over three years.
- This week, the program welcomes pumpkins at all 40 scrap sites as well as at other municipal collection points.
🌳 Tree talk: Amid intense storms, DSS responded to 44,000 tree emergencies this year, roughly twice as many as usual, Commissioner Cole Stallard tells Axios.
- He says DSS has recently tripled preventive tree trimmings to 90,000 a year, but crews are still backed up with requests.
- So Mayor Brandon Johnson's 2027 budget proposes another 10 forestry crews — for a total of 40 — that could tackle 15,000 more trims a year, officials say.
🪧 Sign recycling: Wednesday morning, Stallard's crews will scoop up thousands of campaign signs to recycle their plastic and metal, a practice DSS started in 2023 after questions from Axios.
🍂 Leave 'em alone: As foliage keeps dropping this month, DSS urges you to leave as many leaves as possible in your garden beds and on the lawn to enrich the soil.
- Pushing leaves into the streets is illegal and clogs up sewer grates.
- If you must get rid of yard waste, collect it in a bag, place it next to your garbage bins and call 311 for a special pickup.
- Next year, DSS will launch an EPA-funded pilot offering curbside yard waste collection to more than 40,000 households, says Stallard, one of the few holdovers from the Lightfoot administration.
🦝 Rat ask: With rodent issues still top of mind, Johnson's budget proposes giving DSS five new rat crews for preventive abatement citywide.
- And while some neighborhoods flirt with rat birth control programs, Stallard says he's eyeing a carbon dioxide pilot in 2027.
Follow the money: These new additions to DSS, as well as other "quality of life" services, would cost an additional $11.5 million, Johnson administration reps tell Axios.