Update from Seattle Public Utilities:
At 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 600 lucky Seattle residents who pledge to recycle and compost will receive a Collector’s Edition Seattle Mariners Kitchen Caddy at the following locations:
Lake City Neighborhood Service Center at 12525 28th Avenue Northeast, Seattle, WA 98125
– See more at: http://atyourservice.seattle.gov/2015/01/05/seattle-mariners-kitchen-caddy-giveaway-jan-7/#sthash.NzpbOb5M.dpuf
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As Maple Leaf enters its second week of trash checking, we’re interested in hearing about neighbors’ experiences.
After our first post on the new trash enforcement, one commenter noted:
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.
This did not seem to be the case on many blocks (we looked).
But this week KUOW has a story featuring Maple Leaf trash: “Seattle’s scarlet letter for sloppy trash sorters.”
The public radio station talked with Rodney Watkins, a lead driver for CleanScapes.
As Watkins made the rounds in Maple Leaf recently, he appeared disheartened to find an entire red velvet cake in someone’s trash bin. Any house with more than 10 percent food in their garbage earned a bright red tag notifying them of the infraction.
“Right now I’m tagging probably every fifth can,” Watkins said. “I don’t know if that’s just the holidays, or the fact that I’m actually paying a lot more attention.”
Right now the tags are just a warning, but fines will apply beginning in July. For single households, $1 – but apartments, condos and commercial buildings could be fined $50.
More information from Seattle Public Utilities is here. KUOW says Seattle is the first city in the country to fine people for not properly sorting their garbage.
Cas, we Do indeed live in a dictatorship, it’s akin to being three years old and having a nagging mother telling you what to do all the time. As mommy and Seattle government always say, “be quiet, one day honey, you’ll realize it was all with your best interest in mind.”
Nothing will ever change in Seattle, what with 100% Political Uniformity. My oh my, even a moderate Democrat is viewed with suspicion.
So what the heck goes to the regular trashcan anymore?
My recollection was that the yard waste/clean green bins were to keep leaves and lawn clippings out of the trash stream. Recycle, yard waste were voluntary programs. Fines to enforce a changed agenda on a voluntary program is mission creep, pure and simple.
What about the poo? I can’t put a bag of rotting food in my garbage but I can put a bag of nice fresh dog poop in there? Have fun digging in my can poor garbage collector dude.
Do you guys not understand how a democracy works? You elect people to make decisions for you.
The “Seattle process” takes long enough. Can you imagine how long it would take to get things done if we had to vote on every little thing?
I agree with Maple LeafBob – at a minimum we should get weekly recycling pick-up.
Decreased service, ever changing rules, fines to come. And thanks to our lovely Seattle city council – not even a vote from the people. Apparently we do live in a dictatorship.
It is more than a little appropriate that they “Red Tag” our cans.
What does a brick, wrapped in a red “Notice of Garbage Infraction” and covered with 20 feet of packing tape go in? Garbage, Yard Waste or Recycle?
I have been very diligent about separating compost from garbage – but sometimes it’s just to gross to deal. I’ll pay my dollar fine. I have 2 compost bins in my back yard and most of the compost goes there. But I REFUSE to put meat scraps and bones in my compost because of raccoons and other tiny pests. So, for that huge 99+ gallon compost bin, I’m supposed to put my tiny bag of meat scraps out every week?
But I don’t remember EVER voting for this and it does make me a little upset that this is being imposed. I mean – don’t we already pay mega bucks to have our garbage hauled off?
If the city expects us to compost – why can’t they give us the option to have smaller compost bins during the winter months, when I doubt that many use those bins at all. As it stands now, you can only change your bin size once a year and it’s costs over 20 bucks to do so.
The hard part for me is remembering to put my yard waste out every week even if its not full. I typically only put my yard waste out every week during the months were I am cutting the grass and trimming bushes, trees.
It’s an odd feeling I need to overcome to put out a huge yard waste can that is 1/10 full. But I will learn because leaving the food waste in the can an extra week gets nasty 🙂
I also agree that pushing everyone to recycle, but only picking it up every other week is stupid. I am always overflowing with recycling.
I live in an apartment building. I sort my garbage already but I’m in the minority. My neighbors on the whole are not the kind of people that make recycling or sorting of anything a priority. I see this going really poorly where I live for a multitude of reasons with fines being passed down to us in short order. Being among the working poor in Seattle, I’m somewhat dismayed at having another financial burden placed on me potentially because I live with people who can’t be bothered.
I read the KUOW article and can’t let this quote go without comment:
“I ended up actually taking those things (oily rags, with unknown contaminants) and putting them on the main counter in the lobby of the condominium and I just wrote a note to everyone and I said, ‘Are these things recyclable?’”
So picking crap out of a trash bin/recycle bin/yard waste container that was placed in error and plopping it on the counter inside the lobby is within their operational wheelhouse?
Lewis Carroll meet the Rabbit Hole.
The red tag says “It isn’t garbage anymore”. I beg to differ: It is, and of the worst kind.
Penn and Teller have a pretty good review of recycling, take a look on YouTube. You may not agree, but it is worth watching.
This is a prelude to biweekly trash pick up. It won’t look like a fee increase, but it will be.
I will be adding a quart of liquid to my trash bags, dig through it if you want.
Bob/Lee:
“They won’t rip open bags to check their contents. They won’t meticulously measure what’s inside or engage in debates with utility customers.
But as they toss a can’s contents into the truck, they’ll pay attention to what they do see.”
I was red tagged and annoyed b/c I am very careful about sorting. I compost too. I dont know what I did wrong…. They need check boxes on those red tags to alert users how to fix their mistake. If they can take the time to 1)issue a ticket 2) log it for a fine, and 3) add that log to your bill, then they can certainly spare 5 seconds to check a box notifying users what they need to do differently.
@MAPLELEAFBOB…my guess is that if you do not have a yard waste or compost can out every week for pick up they can assume you are throwing away food.
Either that, or they have been given a budget to buy Beagles to ‘sniff’ for residential offenders and their food follies.
When did a vote of Seattlelites take place? Did I miss something? (sarc). First the doing away of plastic bags (even the sturdy reusable ones) DESPITE a vote to keep them.
The Seattle City Council and Sanitation have overstepped their bounds.
Good grief. Food is BIO-DEGRADABLE!
I couldn’t give a flying flip if my can is red tagged one hundred times. This is a garbage can too far, for me.
Enough Seattle. Stop dictating to us. Stop it!!!
I have to drag two cans up a LONG driveway for pick up (the truck will not come down our driveway)
No way am I hauling my yard waste can up the driveway along with two others.
And why haven’t Seattle Garbage and Recycled notice the utter mess every other week for recycle?
The cans need to be picked up weekly. Weekly. I am tired of seeing recyclable trash left out due to the fact the pick up is only every other week.
Either issue a bigger can or give us weekly pick up.
Too bad about the cake. Maybe next time it will be a pie….a cream pie.
Where wa
Forgive me if this has been discussed, but how will have any luck searching given that most people I know put their garbage in a bag that is closed up before it goes into the garbage can. Are they really ripping open bags to check the contents?
I haven’t had any trouble either but what most of the comments I’ve seen from people that got tagged is they’re not raging against the machine, they just don’t know what they did wrong. Seems to me if the goal is to change people’s behavior the notices need to be more specific about what they did wrong. The 10% threshold would also seem very hard to gauge by eyeballing it, I’d hope collectors are reserving the notices for obvious offenders since there doesn’t appear to be any method of challenging the fine.
No problem at our house. Seems pretty simple.