Seattle getting better at recycling its trash

When the city of Seattle began punishing people who didn't recycle enough, critics said the city had gone too far by dictating how people should deal with their trash. A year into it, people seem to have embraced it.

Of the 6 million garbage cans set out for collection at homes between January and September, garbage haulers left behind only 1,207 — a compliance rate of 99.98 percent.

Seattle Public Utilities, which manages trash collection, says the city's history of recycling — curbside pickup since 1988 — made it easy for people to adapt to the law.

"We've had surprisingly positive reception to the ban," said George Sidles, a collection manager. "The city is really behind this effort."

On Jan. 1, the city began enforcing a law requiring residents to recycle glass, paper, cardboard, tin, aluminum and some plastics. If a garbage can set out for pickup contains more than 10 percent of recyclable items, the hauler slaps on a yellow tag and leaves the garbage at the curb until the owner sorts out the recyclable items. Businesses, which are required only to recycle paper, cardboard and yard waste, and apartment buildings that don't comply after two warnings get a $50 fine.

About 95 percent of apartment buildings and businesses have complied. Some apartment buildings and businesses have received second warnings, but none has been fined.

The city inspects for recycling in two ways. At single-family homes, waste haulers open up the cans and look inside. They are not required to look inside trash bags.

At businesses and apartment buildings, the utilities department sends inspectors to examine garbage containers and provide assistance to managers on how to manage their recycling. Allied Waste, which picks up recycling in some parts of the city, has had trouble keeping up with the number of new apartment buildings signing up for recycling, Brett Stav, a utilities spokesman, said. The city has fined the company and did not inspect apartment buildings for recycling compliance over the summer.

Stav says the city saves $4.4 million a year by recycling materials and reselling them instead of paying to send that trash to a landfill. The city has spent close to $1.4 million in the past three years on educating the public, including using its quarterly customer newsletter.

"We've made the correlation between education and recycling," Stav said. "The less we spend on education, the less people recycle."

In the late 1990s, when the department's education budget was less than half the $450,000 it is today, recycling slacked from 44 percent in 1995 to 38 percent in 2001. In 2003, the City Council passed a law requiring businesses and residents to recycle. The law took effect in January 2005, and in January this year the city began punishing people who don't abide.

The city's overall recycling rate returned to 44 percent in 2005, and the utilities department said the city is on track to reach Mayor Greg Nickels' goal of recycling 60 percent of the city's trash by 2010.

Single-family homes recycled 61.4 percent of their trash in 2005, compared with 57.5 percent before the law passed. Businesses increased recycling to 46.6 percent last year from 37.3 percent in 2003. Self-haulers at transfer stations are recycling slightly less — 17.9 percent in 2005 compared with 18.1 percent in 2003. Stav says the transfer stations aren't designed to make it easy for people to sort out their recycling. The City Council and mayor are studying rebuilding the two transfer stations.

Sharon Pian Chan: 206-464-2958 or schan@seattletimes.com