Seattle Separation
July 23rd, 2007 by Jonathan
Seattle’s City Council passed an ordinance Monday requiring all single family homes to recycle their food scraps by 2009. I’m a bit late on this due to my vacation, but what kind of food waste blogger would I be if I didn’t pass along this news?
My friends at The Seattle Times have all the details covered. And here’s one columnist’s take on it. Reaction in the blogosphere ranges from semi-cynical to cynical.
While the ordinance is a positive step for food waste diversion, I find it odd that residents will be forced to pay for the service (which exists now but is voluntary). Even more puzzling: why businesses, which produce double the food waste of households, won’t also be required to separate their scraps.
Seattle has an aggressive goal of diverting 72 percent of its trash from landfills by 2025. If that’s the case, why not go after the biggest targets first? Help me out, here.
Stumble it! | Posted in Household, Waste Stream |
While food waste composting does exist right now in Seattle (we’re allowed to put compostables in our Yard Waste bins, which get collected every other week), we have to pay to participate in the Yard Waste program. So it’s not that it’s free now but we’ll have to pay for it when this program becomes mandatory, it’s just that more people will either be paying for yard/food waste collection when it goes live, composting their own to get around paying for it, or in violation of the new rules.