“The people, wildlife and wetlands of the Calumet area have borne more than their share of pollution, and it’s time for the City of Chicago to find a different way,” conservation organizations said in support of the General Iron hunger strikers.
General Iron
Protesters are urging the city to stop a metal-scrapping company from opening on the Southeast Side. What both sides have to say.
The industrial community once marked by steel mills is now lined with other plants, and the proposed opening of a metal scrapping company has become a point of controversy on the Southeast Side and across the city.
A group of hunger strikers is protesting metal recycler General Iron opening up on the Southeast Side. We hear from opponents and a company representative.
The Chicago Department of Public Health has asked Reserve Management Group to resubmit its application to operate Southside Recycling at 11600 S. Burley Ave. with a significant amount of additional information.
While awaiting the city’s verdict on its permit application to start up a metal shredding and recycling operation on the Southeast Side, Reserve Management Group is in the process of acquiring another metal recycling business in Humboldt Park.
Opponents of a permit application for a metal shredding facility on the Southeast Side question whether public comments will fall on deaf ears.
General Iron’s parent company has applied for its final permit to operate its metal-shredding operation on the Southeast Side, but federal officials have asked the city to hold off on making a decision.
Convening outside a church just down the street from Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s North Side home, residents of the Southeast Side voiced their opposition to a metal shredding and recycling operation in their neighborhood.
After being hit with a dozen citations from city inspectors in the past year, General Iron has agreed to pay a penalty. Meanwhile, environmental activists continue their fight to block the scrap metal recycler’s move.
Following a May explosion, General Iron has put appropriate controls in place to resume its metal shredding operation, experts say. Neighbors say they have little faith in the company’s commitment to compliance.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s new report on air quality shows that while air pollution is a problem across the city, it’s worse in some neighborhoods than others. What her administration is planning to do about it.
The city outlined a laundry list of rules General Iron would have to abide by in order to start up its metal shredding operation on the Southeast Side, while neighbors continue to push officials to deny the company’s permit application — which has yet to be filed.
Opponents of the Lincoln Park metal shredder want General Iron closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, but if the facility checks all the right boxes, it could eventually restart operations, officials said.
Five weeks after two explosions rattled General Iron, city officials allowed the North Side metal recycler to partially reopen June 24 — but its shredding facility remains shut down as investigations continue into the May 18 blasts.
Over the objections of environmental activists, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday issued a construction permit to General Iron, allowing the company to move its metal-shredding operation from Lincoln Park to the Southeast Side.
