Seattle Council Makes Recycling Mandatory

The city of Seattle’s City Council voted Dec. 15 to make recycling mandatory for residents of the city. The vote was unanimous.

The new rules require Seattle residents to collect for recycling paper, old corrugated containers, glass and plastic bottles, and aluminum and tin cans, starting Jan. 1, 2005. If these materials are found in garbage cans, the containers will be tagged as part of a yearlong education campaign.

Beginning in 2006, residential customers will be warned if the materials are found in trash receptacles. If banned materials are found three times, the city will refuse to collect the garbage until such items are removed.

Commercial customers can be fined up to $50 for each container that includes banned materials. But single-family households will not face a monetary penalty under the new rules.

The rules stem from Seattle's slumping recycling rate, which dropped from 44 percent in 1995 to 38 percent in 2001. The city's goal is a 60 percent recycling rate by 2010. The city was supposed to hit a 52 percent rate last year.

Nickels' original proposal also called for commercial customers, such as restaurants, to recycle food waste, but the new rules don't require that. City officials still are refining the details of such a plan.

Scope of Proposed Legislation includes the following:

·            Commercial establishments -- ban on disposal of paper, cardboard and yard waste in garbage.

·            Residents of multifamily and mixed-use buildings -- ban on disposal of newspaper, mixed waste paper, cardboard, glass bottles and jars, plastic containers, “tin” cans and aluminum cans in garbage .

·            Commercial or multifamily customers without adequate space for recycling may be exempted by.

Enforcement of the new legislation would include an education program that would begin by the end of the first quarter next year.

Bans on the disposal of recyclables would not become effective until Jan. 1, 2005, with enforcement starting in 2006.

Further, the ban would apply to the disposal of uncontaminated paper and cardboard only.