Comments

1
Will representative Pollet be as adamantly insisting that all the publicly funded committees and commissions that he sits on in Olympia also be opened to the public?
3
regarding the garbage rules....I don't compost due to the fact that every time the weather heats up my compost bin becomes a swarming mass of maggots, and I have to clean out the bin weekly. And cleaning a garbage bin weekly is just dumb. I guess I will maybe invest in a trash disposal?

More likely I will just keep throwing food waste out with my other garbage in sealed plastic bags.
5
@3 - Have you considered using a biodegradable bag inside your compost bin? No? How typical of your selfish way of thinking. I'll bet you are a flow-meter cheater as well, huh? Me me me me me. Merry Fucking Christmas asshole!
6
@3-yes, but the birds love maggots, so open the bin and share the bounty! One being's garbage is another's elevenses...
7
Re. the boys and the punch-- what a terribly sad and awful situation. I don't think that boy should be punished, but get him some counseling right away to deal with the awful guilt he will carry his whole life.
8
@3 how about keeping meat waste in the fridge until the morning of compost pick up?
9
I put everything in a counter top compost (with biodegradable bag) and toss it in the yard waste when it gets full. I've never had to clean anything out or had any bugs. What's the big deal?
10
@3 & @8 I put meat scraps, etc in a sealed container in my freezer until the night before/morning of pickup. Works like a charm.
11
Oh, and the comments on the Times article on composting are priceless. I think there must be a group of chronically constipated, ED ridden, old white guys who spend all their days complaining about anything the Times puts up on their website. They probably do it while sitting on the toilet, hoping desperately for some relief.

12
@7

I'm sure the victim's family will be fine with no punishment.
13
@6 Open can is bad idea. My problem is rats. I try to delay if I can until the night before pickup.
14
You missed this: Surprise to surprise. Sony is releasing "the Interview" on Christmas after all.

http://gawker.com/of-course-they-did-i-g…

I AM SHOCKED!

Buh..buh..but what about the TERRORISTS SONY!

15
@5 Dad?

Yes, flow meter cheater, tax cheat, and my car runs on the tears of orphaned children. The biodegradable bags are actually a good idea that I have not considered. Thanks for the tip! And merry christmas to you too!
16
All my handle-less paper bags find re-use as liners for my compostable waste bin.

Just remember, they don't view dog/cat doo as compostable.
17
And for those thinking that they'll just flush food scraps down the toilet.... please don't.
18
People all over Seattle are homeless. Others are in poverty and aren't upwardly mobile. The most diverse parts of the City have high crime rates and the victims are largely the poor.

Is Compost really the most important thing to spending limited space on a comment threat on? Is it the civic issue everyone should be renting space in their heads to and engaging in dialogue to solve? Is it even in the top five or 10? It is it the thing the City should be spending limited Council time to legislate on? Is it where we should be focusing finite personnel, investigative resources, ticketing, and ticket tracking? Really?

So much for compassionate progressives. Priorities lie in policing garbage cans rather than securing high-crime neighborhoods for low-income residents.
20
@18 I know, if only we commenters discussed anything other than compost bins. Maybe someone at the stranger can take georgeingeorgetowns advice and perhaps FINALLY post something about homelessness and income inequality.

Great post!
22
What is that man's head glowing? Is he some kind of living god? Is he made of pure energy?

Wait. Gerry Pollet... didn't he... die?!
23
Since we can't talk about composting without proving how horrible we are, can we talk about how attractive Gerry Pollett is?
24
If you give a mouse a cookie...

... the crazy elephant people will no longer be satisfied with getting rid of the elephants, they'll also demand to decide where the elephants should go.
25
@21. NYC went from one of the highest crime rates in the nation (they kept duking it out with D.C. for the honor) to having the lowest of major cities. It dropped by the highest percentage in low-income areas of the City.

All counties in the state, except King, are seeing consistent year-over-year drops in homelessness. Seattle can't get its crud together and go to funding evidence-based remedies.

On a national level, the federal government spends $960 billion per year on means-tested programs for the poor, spread across over 100 programs, in just about every department of the government, and diluted by the overhead created by passing the money through states, counties, cities, and non-profits. Divided $960 billion by households in poverty and you get $64,000 per household. You could give that as a cash grant to each of those households, and all but the largest households would no longer be in poverty.

So the problems are not intractable if this City would quit majoring on "minors" and pull their heads out of their collective group think.

26
@18,

Are you proposing that the trash collectors who are going to spend a few extra seconds of their time looking in garbage cans for food scraps should actually be put to work policing Rainier Valley?

@25,

A number of federal programs (food stamps, for instance) are available to households that are not officially below the poverty line.
27
@26, True, but that does not detract from the broader point. Also, what if you paired that cash grant of $64k per household with a policy that has it declining over time. With the stability of $64k (tax free) those households could engage in education and skills training to start to replace that income as it was fazed out over say 10-years. That frees up new money for more households and creates new revenue for social programs by having them transition to a taxable income.
28
Back when I managed the household compost bin for three units (totaling four adults and 3.5 kids) I hosed out the compost bin a couple times because it was getting kind of nasty.

But other than that I never had a problem.

@20- Says the guy who chimed in about composting as the 3rd comment on this thread.
29
@18- We're still going to have trash and it'll be nice if when we solve poverty and crime we still have some landfill space available. All those newly middle class people are going to be buying more stuff.
30
Like the reusable shopping bag obsession before it -- "Just keep them in your trunk!" -- compost enforcement is such a vapid, transparent, bullshit attempt to psychologically "greenwash" this city's profound anti-urbanism and perpetually pathetic transportation situation.

You're not environmentally friendly, Seattle, and this won't make you any more so.
31
I see where the constipated middle-aged white men have found this comment thread.

Some fiber in the diet, a visit to one of those men's health clinics, and things might just turn around.

Please wait...

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