Tracing the smell of a green challenge

Who knew we could get so excited about seafood shells and gnawed bones?

Or that plastic lids and foil trays were worthy of a gold star?

When there's not much to celebrate around here, Seattle always can turn to its near-religious devotion to recycling.

"We are a little bit fanatical about environmental causes," said George Sidles, recycling manager for Seattle Public Utilities (SPU).

And if there is a promised land, it may just be Cedar Grove Composting in Everett.

This is where, starting March 30, all Seattle meals and gardens will go to die — and rise again.

SPU will start making weekly pickups (instead of every other week) of food and yard waste, including meat, fish and dairy items.

Additionally, more paper, plastic and metal can be recycled, including paper and plastic cups, deli trays, aluminum foil and lids wider than 3 inches.

It's the biggest change to the city's recycling program in a decade, and one that Mayor Greg "Green Giant" Nickels hopes will meet his goal of recycling 60 percent of our waste by 2012.

(He's hoping we recycle 70 percent by 2025.)

So what do we get out of it? Well, clean consciences and a cleaner environment.

And the weekly pickups mean an end to my kitchen smelling like a slaughterhouse run by fruit flies. (Who knew cantaloupes could pack such a punch?)

But we shouldn't expect to see more green in our wallets.

Right now, we pay $25 a ton to get our recyclables processed. Last year, 100,000 Seattle homes recycled 85,000 tons of yard waste for about $2.1 million.

With this new program, Sidles expects us to recycle 35,000 tons more each year.

The city will pay Cedar Grove a flat fee, along with the proceeds from selling the finished compost it makes from our waste.

Still, we should expect the rates to jump because the city just ended a 10-year contract with another recycling plant, Sidles said.

The new rates reflect "an inflationary catchup," he said, meaning an adjustment for fuel and labor costs.

I took a walk around the 26-acre Cedar Grove facility with Sidles and SPU spokesman Andy Ryan the other day.

They say it's the biggest composting facility in the world, turning 164,000 tons of waste into compost every year.

I didn't exactly jump out of the car when we got there. We may scrape stuff off our plates, but they need backhoes to move it around up there.

You get the picture.

That said, the place smells like a cedar forest. A swimming pool. Something wet and living.

There's much talk about "grinding" and "inoculating," probes and microbes. Cedar Grove marketing manager Susan Thoman compared the process to making sourdough bread.

Whatever it is, people come from all over the world to smell and see it, to don orange vests and walk between the "Gore heaps" — piles of compost tucked under a blanket of Gore fabric. It keeps the moisture out and the heat in while the compost "cures" for two weeks at a turn.

You have to touch it to believe it. Recyclables come in smelly and unsorted, and leave a rich, dark mix that you can't resist scooping up.

"That corned beef and cabbage you couldn't finish will be ready for your garden by Memorial Day!" Sidles said.

For some folks, going green can never go too far.

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Tuesday and Friday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.

She's having Jersey tomato dreams.