Schaumburg bans donation boxes without protest

Without an ounce of the protest that was anticipated from affected companies, Schaumburg trustees Tuesday unanimously approved a ban on donation boxes in the village.

Though notification of box owners and property owners will start almost immediately, there will be a period of a few weeks before fines and forcible removal of the boxes begins, Schaumburg Economic Development Coordinator Matt Frank said.

But it’s anticipated that all the boxes will have vanished from the landscape of Schaumburg in about a month, he added.

The unsightliness of the boxes in commercial parking lots was cited as the primary reason for the ban.

When the ban was recommended by the zoning board of appeals two weeks ago, some concern was expressed that property owners who never gave permission for the boxes to be located on their land could be held accountable for their removal.

Such a situation will be avoided, Frank said.

The only exception to the ban is that the principal user of a commercial property site — such as a nonprofit agency — can have a donation box for its own specific use.

But those are uncommon among the proliferation of donation boxes that first attracted the attention of village staff members, who recognized in them a violation of many of Schaumburg’s existing appearance standards.

At the recent zoning board meeting, two for-profit companies that keep donation boxes in Schaumburg lobbied for less extreme regulation.

Carlo Cavallaro, director of government affairs for West Chicago-based USAgain (pronounced “use again”), said his company maintains high standards for its donation boxes while fulfilling a useful role in keeping recyclable textiles out of landfills.

While many people agree recycling is a good idea, most won’t do it without the convenience of incorporating it into their other errands, he said.

Though Cavallaro had intended two weeks ago to try to persuade trustees to see the issue differently than zoning board members did, he said his company would gracefully accept any final decision.

“If we’re told to remove our bins, we’ll be the first to do so — if not the only one,” he said.