Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** cook county is the…

Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** cook county is the second-most-populous county in the united states. With a population of 5.2 million residents cook county is the home to over 40% of the state's population. Cook county demographics include: 760000 residents who are food insecure; over 35% of the homes speak languages other than english; 13% of the population is living in poverty; 6.7% of the adult population is unemployed. The cook county department of environment & sustainability (DES) has planning and regulatory authority over suburban cook county including 133 municipalities. DES has been a regional leader advocating for diverting materials especially food scraps away from regional landfills for over a decade. The updated cook county solid waste management plan 2024-2029: the path toward zero waste and a circular economy provides DES the roadmap to dramatically reduce the climate impacts caused by landfilled waste and provides direction for DES's waste prevention reduction reassembly remanufacturing reuse repair repurpose recycling composting collection and other solid waste related investments policies and practices over the next five years. The update plan promotes and advances the EPA wasted food scale recommendations. These recommendations provide alternatives to landfilling such as: (1) preventing wasted food (2) feeding people through donations or upcycle activities (3) feeding animals (4) composting and (5) anaerobic digestion. DES commits to ensure that all municipalities in the county have access to a food composting related program by 2030.according to the IL EPA food scraps comprise about 20% of municipal solid waste in IL landfills. This would mean that based on 2022 cook county landfill tonnage data and using the EPA warm tool to estimate GHG emissions cook county transferred an estimated 311386 tons of food scraps to landfills in 2022. This generated 156148.32 MTCO2E. When analyzing the regional makeup of this data (northern suburbs western suburbs southern suburbs and the city of chicago) DES found that the south suburbs transferred an estimated 56984.4 tons of food scraps to landfills. This generated 28575.52 MTCO2E.unlike the city of chicago and many municipalities in the northern and western suburbs of cook county there are currently no municipal food scrap composting programs (i.e. food scrap composting drop-off site curbside food scrap composting program and/or comingled yard waste and food scrap program) for any of the fifty-one (51) south suburban municipalities. To address these environmental and regional problems cook county will create the 1ST food scrap drop-off program for south suburbs municipalities. This program includes establishing a permanent drop-off site for south suburban residents to dispose of their food scraps providing free food scrap containers to the first 1400 residents who sign up for the program providing free food scrap carts for the first 100 colleges public schools public libraries and non-profits that sign-up for this program and establishing a paid student internship program that will help conduct outreach in support of this program. Finally cook county will create one of the largest food waste prevention and diversion marketing campaigns for the entire county. This campaign will help educate all cook county residents about the importance of food waste prevention as well as promote alternatives to help divert food waste from regional landfills. The drop-off program will have the capability of diverting at least 200 tons of food scraps away from regional landfills. Using the EPA waste reduction model (warm) tool this would eliminate nearly 70 mtcose annually. The drop-off program advances racial equity and environmental justice by serving municipalities whose population consists mostly of african americans and latino americans. The drop-off program is also targeting municipalities that have high CDC EJI scores and high cook county SVI scores. Thus the 1500 free food scrap carts and containers that will be provided as part of this program will be going to these same residents or institutions that serve these residents. The food scraps collected from the drop-off program will be sent to an anaerobic digester that will use that material to create nutrient-dense compost that will be used at local urban farms that provide healthy food and no or very little cost to mostly black and latino residents who live in communities plagued with food deserts. The marketing campaign will help the entire county reduce food being wasted and landfilled. Thus helping to reduce the region's carbon emissions. The marketing campaign will also provide all residents especially those who live in EJI communities the necessary information and tools to make better informed purchasing and waste management decisions and/or knowledge of where donated food can be sent.