Four months after Champaign’s new multi-family unit recycling program “Feed the Thing” was implemented, residents in Champaign are taking advantage of the program to recycle more.

The program usually gets around 70 to 80 tons per month of recyclables and serves around 30,000 people in Champaign, said Angela Adams, recycling coordinator for Champaign.

“That’s the only way we can look at the success rate, is by rate because we don’t have a survey or anything to see if people are using the program,” Adams said.

The amount of recyclables the program has gathered so far could fill the basketball court in the Assembly Hall 13 feet deep, she added.

Before this program, people living in multi-family units had to dispose of their recyclables at a drop-off location, Adams said.

Ilsoo Hong, junior in LAS, lives in an apartment in Champaign and said she has always managed to recycle even before the new program was implemented, but finds it more convenient.

“At the end of last year me and my roommates went to recycle elsewhere so we had to drive our stuff over. So it’s obviously more convenient that it’s right outside,” Hong said.

Adams said the program has gotten a lot of attention in the Champaign area.

“I think for being a new program, a lot of people know about it. They have been visiting the website, emailing me, calling me with questions,” she said.

Although the program is off to a good start, Adams said people could always find more garbage that could be recycled.

“You can potentially divert 80 percent of your waste, so yeah there’s always room for improvement,” Adams said.

The program could have also seen more success if it had been implemented in the beginning of the school year as opposed to starting in December, she added.

“When the students come back in the fall, there will be a big push for the recycling program so that people know it’s here,” Adams said.

This program is not offered to single-family units. Instead, single-family units use curb-side recycling pick-up. In June, the Champaign city council will be revisiting the single-family recycling program, Adams said.

Urbana has one recycling program for the whole city that includes both multi- and single-family units, which has been in place since 1999. Courtney Rushforth, recycling coordinator for Urbana, said they usually have an 18 to 20 percent recycling rate for their multi-family program and a 32 to 35 percent recycling rate for their single-family program.

“It’s (recycling) very popular. Especially with this ‘go green’ movement, recycling has taken off. Actually every year we have seen an increase in tonnages collected,” Rushforth said.

“We still are seeing increases, so we know that the program is still progressing.”

Rushforth said they also encourage recycling more by volume-based pricing for garbage.

This means the more garbage a person puts out, the higher the bill is.