Seattle residents and businesses fail to meet recycling goals

According to the Capitol Hill Seattle Blog,Seattle is not meeting its established recycling goals. 

Seattle Public Utilities’ (SPU) 2015 Recycling Rate Report, released July 1, 2016, found the city originally intended to recycle municipal solid waste (MSW) at a rate of 60 percent by 2012. This goal was revised in 2013 to 60 percent by 2015. The city fell short of this goal, recycling only 58 percent of its MSW in 2015.

SPU says it will propose a garbage, compost and recycling rate hike of 7.2 percent in 2017, 1.9 percent in 2018 and 4 percent in 2019 at a council committee Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2016, to upgrade facilities and to offset the cost of its Utility Discount Program for low-income residents, the article says. 

The post adds that a series of compliance checks found the majority of large stores in the city are adhering to Seattle’s ban on plastic bags, enacted in 2011. Drug stores and apparel stores were the most compliant, exceeding 80 percent. Convenience stores achieved almost 60 percent compliance, while grocery stores achieved less than 40 percent compliance.