19% drop in garbage wins neighborhoods $50K

And the winner is ... Thursday.

That's the garbage-collection day for the neighborhoods that won CleanScapes $50,000 contest that will build something in their garbage-collection district.

It's actually not one neighborhood that won the contest, but parts of six: Capitol Hill, First Hill, Madison Park, Madison Valley, Denny-Blaine and Montlake. They all have their garbage, recycling and yard waste picked up on Thursdays.

The winning area, which was to be announced Thursday at a Cascade Land Conservancy breakfast, reduced the amount of waste collected between Oct. 1 and March 31 by 19 percent. Community councils representing the winning areas will work with CleanScapes to select a community project to be paid for, installed and maintained by CleanScapes.

It's all part of a city effort to reduce waste.

"We're going to have to get together as a district to see the various needs, " said Jonathan Dubman, with the Montlake Community Club. He suggested building trails around the Montlake Community Center as a possible use for some of the money.

"Montlake doesn't want to monopolize it," he said. "It should go in the hopper as well as other things we'll look at."

Chris Martin, president of CleanScapes, said most of the waste reduction likely was in yard waste. He said the actual waste reduction might not be a good picture of what neighborhoods are doing because the contest only looked at three months of garbage data. Next year, he said, CleanScapes will look at a full-year data before awarding the $50,000 prize.

The only rules that CleanScapes has for the neighborhoods to collect the money is the project has to be "shovel ready." He doesn't want it spent on plans and process.

Martin said his company came up with the idea to offer a reward to neighborhoods for reducing their waste because of the Seattle City Council's emphasis on its zero-waste plan.

He said CleanScapes earns $10 for every ton of waste it reduces, which will go into the reward. Martin said the city now pays its garbage contractors $60 a ton to get rid of garbage, $40 a ton for compost and $20 a ton for recycling.

"They pass on some of the savings to us and everybody wins," he said.

This year the contest was limited to neighborhoods south of the Ship Canal and north of Interstate 90, and next year it will be expanded to all CleanScapes neighborhoods in the city. It shares garbage collection with Waste Management.

Cynthia Stross, president of the Madrona Community Council, which is part of the Thursday collection zone, said the presidents of the various community councils will meet to try to decide how to distribute the funds. It could go to several projects and she said ideas floating around in Madrona include fixing a broken sidewalk and adding lighting and picnic tables at some of the parks.

Another idea, she said, is posting an information board about the history of the neighborhood.

Other ideas suggested by CleanScapes are P-patches, children's gardens, playground equipment and landscaping.

Every week Seattle households put out 5,100 tons of garbage, recyclable materials and yard waste to be hauled away. The garbage is taken to an Oregon landfill.

In the contest, the Wednesday collection area placed second, with a 17 percent reduction, followed by Tuesday's, with a 16 percent reduction. Last was Friday, with a 12 percent reduction.

Susan Gilmore: 206-464-2054 or sgilmore@seattletimes.com