Southside Recycling has sent an open letter signed by more than 1,700 stakeholders nationwide urging Chicago’s Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Dr. Allison Arwady, commissioner of CDPH, and Michael Regan, EPA administrator to tour the company’s facility in Chicago and issue the permit for its operations.
In this letter, Southside Recycling which is part of the Reserve Management Group (RMG), details how the city and federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has catered to the complaints of a small group of activists who have protested the operations of the $80mn facility. It states that these protests have continued despite Southside receiving multiple permits from the City of Chicago and the Illinois EPA after a lengthy review process that included community inputs.
Steve Joseph, chief executive officer of RMG said in the letter that he hoped Mayor Lightfoot would take some time to visit the facility so that RMG may be granted a fair chance to set the record straight.
Many of the co-signees of this letter include stakeholders from the recycling, metals, and related industries. It further states that the undue delay in issuing the final permit is “in clear contravention of a signed agreement” between RMG and the City of Chicago. The signed agreement promised that the company would close its metal shredding facility on the city’s North Side by the end of 2020, while the city would “reasonably cooperate in achieving the efficient, expeditious transition” to the new facility.
In May 2021, Davis Index had reported on the Southside Recycling facility and the issues it was facing with the Chicago administration.
Click here to read the open letter and here to read the statement issued by Southside Recycling on its open invitation to Mayor Lightfoot.