Items listed under "State Documents" have been received by the Documents Unit, Illinois State Library, Springfield, and are usually available from public libraries in the state through interlibrary loan. Issuing agencies may have copies available. For items listed under "Other Reports, " write to the publisher as noted.
State Documents
This report is based on data contained in the toxic chemical release reports that are required by the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986, which is part of the Superfund Act. Of the 1,359 facilities that submitted reports, 432 are actively using pollution prevention techniques to reduce the amount of toxic chemicals they release. In addition, the amount of toxic chemicals that companies are recycling and using for energy recovery increased more than 100 percent between 1991 and 1992. It should be noted that most of this report consists of graphs and tables, and the small amount of text is highly technical.
Other Reports
Earnfare was created in 1992 to provide a partial alternative to the General Assistance program, a state-funded program for single people. This evaluation of the new program, produced for the Public Welfare Coalition by researchers at the Center for Governmental Studies at Northern Illinois University, is based on a series of surveys answered by 450 Earnfare employers, focus groups with employers and Earnfare participants and non- participants, and interviews with Department of Public Aid Earnfare staff. The report is highly critical of the program and raises serious questions about its usefulness as presently constituted. In addition to raising numerous questions about the program, the report offers nine specific recommendations for improving it. • Case Studies in Rural Recycling, Office of Solid Waste Management, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2121 W. Taylor, Chicago 60612-7260 (February 1994), 108pp. Rural recycling is still a relatively new enterprise and faces a number of problems not encountered in urban areas. For one thing, the low "olume of materials collected makes it U for rural programs to be self-supporting. For another, rural programs do not have ready access to markets for the materials they collect. This report presents information about several rural programs — their successes and failures — in Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Tennessee and Ontario, Canada. The report also discusses cooperative marketing as a strategy for rural recyclers, and points out that this approach has been slow to spread because the parties involved are unaccustomed to the necessary level of cooperation. A brief final section deals with general issues, such as collection strategies and containers, financing, education and marketing. • The Crazy Quilt of Government: Units of Government in Cook County, 1993, edited by Dick Simpson and Linda Moll, published by Office of Publications Services of the University of Illinois at Chicago (1994), 187 pp.; available from the Office of Social Science Research, UIC, 1007 W. Harrison, Chicago 60607-7136; $25 plus $2 for shipping and handling (make check out to the University of Illinois). As the editors of this volume are quick to point out in their executive summary, this is not an exhaustive study of Cook County government. Indeed, only 80 of the 540 governments with taxing authority are covered, and these were chosen by student researchers (almost 100 of them are listed in the front of the volume). The areas covered include: (in Cook County) the Assessor's Office, the Circuit Court, Sheriff's Police and the State's Attorney; four townships, five municipalities, five school districts and nine special districts. Each section contains specific information, such as purpose and function, organization and administration, budget and physical operations and location, as well as an overview. This last contains the authors' views on how the agency is run and what sorts of improvements could be made. The first 60 pages are an overview of the government of Cook County, with excerpts from recommendations gleaned from the entire volume. Anna J. Merritt 36/August 1994/Illinois Issues
|
|||||||||||||||