Seattle Approves Fines For Excessive Waste In Trash

The Seattle City Council passed a new ordinance that allows the city to charge residents $1 for too much waste in their garbage cans starting next year.

Current Seattle Public Utilities policies on this matter are looser. SPU encourages, not requires, those living in single-family homes to dispose of food waste and compostable paper products in compost bins rather than in the trash. While apartment buildings are required to have compost bins available, residents don’t have to use them. Businesses have no requirements.

The ordinance for next year lets garbage collectors take a look through residents’ trash to see if more there is too much compostable material. If compostable items make up 10 percent or more, the violation will be documented and residents will get a warning to expect a $1 fine if they do it again.

Apartment buildings and businesses have the 10 percent requirement as well, however they will be allowed two warnings before they are fined.

A third violation results in a $50 fine. Garbage cans with this many violations or more will be checked by inspectors on a random basis.

Educational tickets and warnings will start on Jan.1, but fines won’t begin until July 1.

According to The Seattle Times, the agency’s solid-waste director Tim Croll doesn’t expect many fines to come of the policy. He elaborated that the city outlawed recyclable items from the trash nine years ago and has collected less than $2,000 in fines from violations.

While the point of the ordinance is to encourage environmental sustainability and to prevent people from throwing out materials that can be disposed of in a better way, critics have pointed out the invasion of privacy involved in the process. However, garbage collectors in the city already check bins for recyclable items, so the new ordinance isn’t a far extension of what’s already in place.

Another critique is how subjective 10 percent can look at a quick glance. While larger percentages, such as 50 or 60, are easy to point out, nine percent doesn’t look much different from 12 percent. Residents have to be very close to zero to not have to worry about getting fined, which is environmentally good, but anyone who borders on that edge could have small fines that add up. Checking the percentage could be demanding of some households, especially for those with small children who can’t monitor everything the children put in the trash.

Whether you find Seattle’s ordinance as progressive to the future or invasive of people’s privacy, it’s important to pay attention to because it could become a policy that spreads to your city.

Seattle Approves Fines For Excessive Waste In Trash