Garbage-collection days across the city are about to change—if you’re a homeowner, you should be getting a guide from Seattle Public Utilities this week. More exciting, however (that is, if you’re a Nanny State EnviroNazi EcoFascist™ like me) is that within the next month or so, you’ll be able to put yard waste out every week—and you can dump all food waste, including meat, fish, and dairy, into the yard-waste bin. The reason you haven’t been able to do this until now—as I learned at a Tilth composting class last year—isn’t because Cedar Grove, the private company that turns Seattle’s yard waste into compost, can’t compost meat and dairy. (Their high-temperature composting process can compost just about anything). It’s because Seattle officials didn’t want meat and dairy scraps sitting around for two weeks. Weekly collection: Problem solved. You’ll also be able to dump glass into the same recycling bin as metal and plastic (you weren’t doing that already, were you?) and recycle most paper and plastic cups, deli trays, aluminum foil and plastic plant pots. More information is available at Seattle Public Utilities’ web site.

30 replies on “Changes Coming To Your Garbage”

  1. What about recycling? Will it be every week? I’ve been asking for a second recycling container for over a year now, but no luck.

    Also, it took nearly a year for Seattle Public Utilities to give us a smaller garbage can. The previous owners of our house had the garbage can that’s the same size as the recycle and yard waste containers, which was helpful while we were moving in. My wife and I called every couple weeks and they would always tell us to leave the can outside and they’d take it away and give us a smaller one. Never happened, and they continued charging us for the huge can that we never ever filled. Anybody else run into this problem? I swear, SPUD does this on purpose to milk extra cash out of people.

  2. Yay! Now can they do something about how loud it is when I dump a crate of glass into the recycling bin? I’m getting tinnitis from recycling so much.

  4. Does this mean that we apartment dwellers will now be able to compost our food scraps conveniently, or will this only benefit the house-dwelling faction of the Seattle NSENEF movement?

  6. One word: compost.

    It’s weekly now.

    But the cans are still too small for bodies, @5.

    If your apartment doesn’t do it, ask them why they don’t, cause us in townhouses get weekly compost pickup with yard waste.

  7. Is it supposed to be “green” pumping out lawn mower pollutants and making a bin’s worth of yard waste every damn week instead of every two?

  8. @1 – Try leaving a note on your old trashcan for the driver. I’ve had good luck quickly getting new cans, lids, etc by leaving a note.

    @6 – The 96-gallon yard waste bin will easily hold a body.

    @7 – Anything that reduces material going to landfill is “green”. A weekly pickup doesn’t require you to mow your lawn more often. And, for chrissakes, use a hand mower.

  11. We just started this program in Renton: yard + compost every week, recycle & garbage every other.

    Why not your apartment? Cause they charge the apartment owner as a business – a shitload more money and separate charges for recycle AND yard+compost. I have (and live in) a triplex. Luckily, I had a nice person answer the phone at Waste Management who discovered that I was listed as residential and advised me to keep that listing so I don’t need to pay extra for recyle/compost.

    I now have 3 cute green garbage bins, 3 not so cute blue recycle behemoths, and one big-ass gray compost thing that would easily fit TWO bodies. Since I replaced the lawn with edible bushes and ground cover, I have the joy of wheeling Mr. Big-ass to the curb with just one or two little bags of kitchen compost in it.

  12. You’ll also be able to dump glass into the same recycling bin as metal and plastic

    … and paper? Oh please, one bin, one bin.

  16. @14, @15

    If putting your meat and fish in your yard waste can for up to a week is smelly or attracts vermin, just go back to putting it in your trash can, like you do now. (For up to a week.)

  17. This is all a great idea – as long as Richard Conlin doesn’t start going through my (and your) trash to make sure I’m (we’re) recycling properly.

  18. @2: No kidding! Hurts like hell. It’s actually painful. (Probably means my hearing loss has already begun.)

    German recycling ten years ago had sound-reducing Altglass containers. Metal domes with little portholes at eye level lined by baffling rubber triangles. Probably all from recycled materials, too. It reduces noise for the whole neighborhood, not just the recycler losing his hearing.

  19. @16
    So, you are telling me that I can put my fish and meat for recycling into plastic bags like I do my trash – otherwise I think we are headed for some very smelly times.

  24. Everyone freaking out about meat in the yard waste bin: What the fuck do you do with it now? Put it in the trash can? What is the difference? Sheesh.

  25. Hey SPU – welcome to the 21st Century!! You’ve adopted some of San Francisco and Toronto’s waste policies 8 years later! Well done.

    @2, 12, 18:
    all recycling goes in together. Since paper usually makes up the majority of recycling, the paper will reduce the amount of broken glass – that’s why many cities moved to “comingled” recycling years ago. So the paper will pad your bin and you no longer have to try to run away before the painfully loud sound of smashed broken glass screeches out of the bin.

    Put your compost in cereal boxes, or any other kind of paper bag you normally just recycle.

  27. Re: Food Waste – put scraps in a durable container either glass or plastic and keep in the freezer. On the day of your pick up drop frozen food waste in cart. No smell or fruit flies w/ this method. Using “bio” (biodegradable) bags is expensive, so save your money.

    Single Family Homes include duplexes and 4-plexes. Multifamily or apartment buildings can get a Food/Yard Waste cart ask the Owner or Manager. Now that we no longer separate out glass…you could use that designated space for a Food/Yard Waste cart.

    Recycling pick-ups will still be every other week. If you want another Recycling Cart (free) or want a different sized Yard/Food Waste cart call Seattle Public Utilities 206/684-3000.

    Less and less material goes into your Garbage can consider going w/ a smaller and cheaper can.

  28. The biggest news in these press releases is CURBSIDE ELECTRONIC RECYCLING. I’ll say it again: CURBSIDE ELECTRONIC RECYCLING.

    If that doesn’t affect your life in a positive way, what the hell are you doing on the internets??

    Oh, and garbage-fed rats are slow, tasty, and easy to cook.

  29. Ummm… so how much gas does all this weekly collection increase our carbon footprint on the environment?

    I’m curious how the ecoRabid ECB answers that question.

    E.g, doesn’t the increase in frequency of pickup and the corresponding additional use of fossil fuels offset any “green” advantage gained by this composting solution?

  30. Currently, Seattle garbage goes to a “landfill” and is quickly covered. Compostable material undergoes anaerobic or “without air” decomposition and produces significant quantities of methane. Composting, on the other hand, is a fundamentally aerobic or “with air” process, and well managed commercial compost facilities do not produce any methane. Methane, a greenhouse gas is 21 times more potent (or effective in trapping heat) than Carbon Dioxide.

    SPU waste collectors will use new low-emission trucks that meet or exceed federal standards. Sixty percent of the trucks will run on a bio-diesel blend and 40 percent will run on compressed natural gas. Reducing pollutants in neighborhoods.

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