Welcome to Christmas Eve!
And a gray one, at that. (1.22 inches of rain in last 24 hours.)
Two things:
From Seattle Public Utilities: “No garbage, yard waste or recycling collections are scheduled in Seattle on Thursday, Dec. 25.
“Thursday and Friday collections will be collected one day later that week due to the Christmas Day holiday. Please be sure to have your containers available by 7 a.m., to ensure collection.”
Also, beginning a week from Thursday the city gets tough on trash.
From our news partner The Seattle Times:
Starting Jan. 1, food scraps, pizza boxes and paper napkins won’t be allowed in garbage cans. For the first six months, violators will get notices from the city; after that period, violators will be fined $1.
It gets more complicated, but, yes: “Drivers will be watching for the materials and will inform the city about violators”
The Times’ story is here. Many, many comments on it are here.
The city will be giving out 200 kitchen food waste collectors at 10 am on Wednesday Jan 7
http://atyourservice.seattle.gov/2015/01/05/seattle-mariners-kitchen-caddy-giveaway-jan-7/
ake City Neighborhood Service Center –
I am conscientious when it comes to putting the proper items in the trash, as are all the neighbors on my block. Lo and behold, every trash bin on the block was red tagged today. The Trash Police did not specify what exactly was placed in the trash in error. So we get to move forward not knowing what was improperly tossed, and fines are the next step. I am willing to bet the fines will increase when it appears the costs to monitor our trash exceed revenue.
Garbage Police.
Garbage Police. Just what we needed.
Luckily, the rules are easy to find. In fact, it took me less time to find them than it took for you to type that paragraph.
http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=seattle+public+utilities+where+does+it+go&l=1
Can you still put rocks into the yard waste bin? The rule was you could put up to four inch in diameter rocks in the bin, as long as you did not exceed the total weight limit (250 lbs?). Now, I think they want you to toss them in the trash, which is counter intuitive if we are trying to reduce the trash stream. They also did not want metal jar and can lids in the recycle bin, but now they allow them? I guess the point I am trying to make, it is difficult for newcomers to understand the rules, the rules change often, and now implementing fines on top of it smacks of micro management by government.
The headline for this post is objectively inaccurate. There are no “garbage police” coming. As the Seattle Times article makes painstakingly clear, the only enforcement is by casual observation of the drivers of the garbage truck. What’s with the FOX-style reporting here?
While I find this new restriction slightly inconvenient, it’s not at all hard to comply, and there is no question that it is beneficial to divert materials from permanent landfills whenever possible. So I will gladly participate out of a sense of responsibility to the environment and my fellow citizens.