On New Year’s Day, the new city rules about food-waste composting kick in. To keep that top-of-mind, Seattle Public Utilities just launched a mini-survey with an incentive – asking what food you’re most likely to compost this holiday season. 14 options (or write in your own) on one page, with a chance to win a kitchen compost bin if you choose to include your e-mail address. Friday’s the deadline.
I do this food items composting, however, I still can’t quite see people spreading all of this old foodstuff all over their yards. Is it processed somehow first? I hope so!
When it’s picked up by the city, it’s processed along with yard waste by Cedar Grove Composting – briefly explained on this page: http://cedar-grove.com/products/compost-top-soil-products/
Vincent, our food compostibles go into the yard waste bins and turned into a finished compost that’s currently used in city parks, etc. I may be wrong, but I think the raw material is sold to Cedar Grove for processing. In turn, consumers buy bags or truckloads of finished “Cedar Grove” compost for their yards.
I’m pretty sure Cedar Grove stopped taking Seattle’s residential food/yard waste. Their contract with Seattle ended last year.
CM, you are a fountain of info. Had NO idea. Apparently two companies now process Seattle’s yard/food waste:
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http://www.seattle.gov/util/Documents/Contracts/index.htm
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…and reading further, it seems one of those companies had some challenges figuring out WHERE it would compost its share of Seattle waste, until partnering with a farm in Quincy:
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http://www.pacificlean.net/pacificlean-environmental-washington-ovenell-farms-announce-partnership
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From Seattle to Stanwood and Quincy would seem like a lot of fuel-burning … Cedar Grove, which apparently declined to seek renewal, was not quite so far away.
One and a half months an I still have not seen anything on this requirement on TV or in the mail on how to do this for home or commercial. What happened to the big media biliz there were going to do. The city council is a joke.
I hope they come to their senses and drop the whole idea. I would certainly like to see an honest financial argument for this draconian “greener than thou” move including the environmental impact of trucking the waste. I will not be holding my breath.
I already pay for the food can so the garbage utility already gets money from me for food waste…
Now we will have to pay $1 every time a garbage man determines more than 10% of food waste in the trash can…
Are fn kidding me???
This outrages me as a citizen tax payer.
I do not remember any of those airbags on the city counsel talking about turning the garbage man into a police office to spy on my garbage and add charges to my already high bill without any recourse of action if I disagree with their percentage call.
It’s a dollar now but I guarentee these air bags is city counsel have plans to raise that over time…
As an adult who these members supposedly represent I am not pleased at with this action. I would prefer they mount a pr campaign to educate us so we choose to do it on our own…
Screw making the garbagean a cop and lets throw these fools into the garbage next election
Well, since City Government certainly can not get anything meaningful accomplished regarding transportation, traffic, new development, maintenance of existing infrastructure, etc., it seems reasonable that they play with the garbage to somehow justify their $100k+ salaries. It’s a ‘feel good’ thing for them, for the governed, perhaps just another tax.
Remember when Seattle was one of the most-recyclable (or ing?) city in the country and our reward was the institution of the garbage police? This should surprise absolutely no one.
Just looked at the SPU survey. Now that is funny. What benefit could they possibly get from that?!
KT – potentially they get a second round of publicity. So many polls out there, and then the followup stories, “we asked, and here’s what you said” … we’re not big on polls but in this case, we hadn’t had a reminder about the recycling change in a while, plus it was a slow night, so I thought, oh well, why not.
Don’t think I’ve heard from garbage guys themselves-what do they think of being put in this position? Do they feel they have the time to look in everyone’s can & estimate the percentage of food waste that might be there?
What about the majority of garbage that is in plastic bags-do they open the can then open the bag-or bags ?Prepare for either-this program going away because it’s ineffective-or the fine going up!
Would still like to know how the garbage guys feel!
All one has to do is look at who is taking the polls on this subject or any others lately in this city to see how bad they stink. Would be interesting to follow up on the mayors and city counsel members to see if they follow anything they preach. Just something else that will cost more to implement than benefit and targets low and middle class the hardest like everything else going on in this state.
From a cost savings standpoint, the garbage should obviously be inspected by the city council themselves.
I know I’m not the only one, but I put rocks, stumps, logs, ect in my yard waste. Never have gotten a note, fine, or anything else. I’m pretty sure the yard waste guys just wanna get through thier route. I doubt the garbage man is any different. I’ll bet there all laughing about it too. Really, there’s probably some pretty nasty stuff you’d find trying to determine the % of food waste in someone’s garbage…..is that food? Oh no it’s poop.
If we find our cans and lids scattered around the alley after trash day- we better think twice about complaining…
Have composted my food waste for years and put it in the clean green yard waste bin throughout the week no issue with the change here. I find it encourages rats and raccoons tossing leftover bones into the garbage bin so I bag and freeze them and toss them in the garbage come collection day. I guess that’s the only thing I will have to change is now putting them into the yard waste. Most of the new developments being built I would imagine have a chute tenants throw their garbage into which go into a compactor. Recyclables I believe they need to walk down and place in appropriate containers. Now are folks going to do this for food waste? I have my doubts!
I will just use my disposal more. Probably not the outcome they are looking for.
Why does this come to mind?
Should five percent appear too small
Be thankful I don’t take it all
‘Cause I’m the taxman
Yeah, I’m the taxman
If you drive a car,
I’ll tax the street
If you try to sit,
I’ll tax your seat
If you get too cold,
I’ll tax the heat
If you take a walk,
I’ll tax your feet
‘Cause I’m the taxman
Yeah, I’m the taxman
Sorry, comment time is over.
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