(WSB photo: Waste Management truck southwest of Morgan Junction late Wednesday afternoon)
5:54 PM: The city has announced new plans for residents who have missed trash, recycling, and yard waste because of the storm. Here’s the full announcement:
Following the historic series of winter storms that hit the Seattle region over the past 11 days, Mayor Jenny A. Durkan and Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) announced they will provide a $10 billing credit to residential customers who had two or more missed garbage collections due to inclement weather. The credit will be issued within two regular billing cycles for impacted customers, which are primarily customers with Monday service. In addition, any customers who have experienced delays in solid waste collection can put out additional bags of garbage, recycling or yard waste free of charge.
“Our foremost goal as a City is to deliver on essential services like garbage, water and power. Our City departments have been working around the clock during this historic weather event clearing our streets, repairing power lines and bringing our most vulnerable neighbors inside,” said Mayor Jenny Durkan. “We thank Seattle residents for their patience in this time, which is why we are providing a credit to our customers for their missed service.”
The series of winter storms that the Seattle region caused an 11-day stretch of weather has adjusted and delayed the collection of garbage, recycling, and compost for 150,000 residential households and 6,000 multi-family accounts. At every safe weather opportunity, drivers collected waste from as many customers as possible, including critical locations like hospitals, multi-family buildings and high-volume commercial customers.
“We thank our customers for their understanding during the unprecedented weather we have experienced over the past several weeks. We are committed to catching up completely on our collections as soon as possible and anticipate we will be back on a normal schedule next week,” said General Manager Mami Hara. “I especially want to thank our crews who have been navigating difficult roads and standing by for any windows of clear weather to collect our residents’ solid waste.”
The improved weather through the weekend will allow additional pickups to service customers who have been significantly delayed in solid waste pickup. Crews are prioritizing pickup for as many Monday customers as possible by deploying additional resources. Monday, Thursday, and Friday customers who have not received service are asked to put their bins and bags out to the curb beginning Friday, February 15 for pickup Friday or Saturday. Seattle Department of Transportation has also deployed their crews to assist SPU contractors by plowing streets where they encounter difficulties. Seattle Parks and Seattle Housing Authority will also assist Seattle Public Utilities as they work to resume normal pickups.
While Seattle Public Utilities will be working to pick up residential garbage, Seattle Public Utilities will also provide garbage drop-off sites on Saturday from 10 am-3 pm in the following four locations at no charge:
West Seattle Stadium-35th Ave SW & SW Snoqualmie St.
[not in West Seattle but FYI]
Lower Woodland – 50th and Whitman
Magnuson – 65th street lot, Parking Lot E
Interbay – 17th Ave. W. And W. Barrett Street
8:30 PM: The online version of this announcement ends with two more paragraphs – reaffirming a free period at the transfer stations through this weekend, and offering contact info if you are due a credit and don’t get it.
9:31 PM: As noted below in comments, we’ll seek some clarifications tomorrow. Pending that, we’ve already received one from SPU spokesperson Sabrina Register: “I want to stress that the pickup tomorrow is for garbage only, not recycling or compost. Extra crews will work hard tomorrow to get missed Monday customers but they may not be able to get all of them due to the number missed and/or continued challenging road conditions on certain streets.”
ADDED FRIDAY MORNING: Another SPU note about what’s happening today and tomorrow:
“I want to clarify that crews will be picking up garbage only, for Monday customers.
Thursday customers, who will be picked up today because of the one-day delay, should also set out their recycling and food/yard waste and crews will make every effort to pick up all solid waste from these customers.
Friday customers will get picked up tomorrow (Saturday). They should also set out garbage, recycling and food and yard waste and crews will make every effort to pick up all solid waste for Friday customers on Saturday.
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