Seattle Passes Laws To Keep Residents From Wasting Food

schwit1 writes The new rules would allow garbage collectors to inspect trash cans and ticket offending parties if food and compostable material makes up 10 percent or more of the trash. The fines will begin at $1 for residents and $50 for businesses and apartment buildings. "SPU doesn’t expect to collect many fines, says Tim Croll, the agency’s solid-waste director. The city outlawed recyclable items from the trash nine years ago, but SPU has collected less than $2,000 in fines since then, Croll says. 'The point isn’t to raise revenue,' he said. 'We care more about reminding people to separate their materials.'"

Comments

Re:Another terrible article courtesy of samzenpus

[halivar]

I read the article, and am having a hard time seeing where the summary is incorrect.

Re:Another terrible article courtesy of samzenpus

[AcidPenguin9873]

Seattle has not made it a fine-worthy offense to discard uneaten eat food, which is what the headline implies. Seattle residents are instead supposed to throw both uneaten food and the remnants of mostly-eaten food - as much of it as they want - into their composting bin, not the "regular" trash. The goal was to get people to compost compostable items (like food) instead of throw them into the trash. Not to prevent discarding uneaten food.

I suppose since compost is later turned into fertilizer, composting is a bit less truly wasteful than throwing uneaten food into the "regular" trash, but I doubt that distinction is meaningful since in either case the food is no longer edible.

Re:Another terrible article courtesy of samzenpus

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes of course, that's what people mean when they say "wasting food".... putting it in a landfill instead of compost.

Usually "wasting food" means disposing of it (by whatever means: compost, landfill, etc) instead of, y'know, eating it. Usually this is caused by poor planning.

Re:Another terrible article courtesy of samzenpus

[thaylin]

When someone says "wasting food" It implies they mean actually wasting the food, as in not eating it all. Not that they are putting it in the incorrect bin, or recycling the food.

Re:Another terrible article courtesy of samzenpus

[ganjadude]

thats funny, Where I live our waste management company has gone in the reverse direction. We used to have like 15 bins (one paper - one food - one brown glass - one green glass, you get the point) and a few years back they consolidated. Now we have just 2 bins. one for garbage, and one for recyling. the separation is done at the plant now.