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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.'"
Why does the headline pretend that it does? Didn't the person who posted this bother to read the article before passing it through to the front page?
And what does it have to do with technology?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I read the article, and am having a hard time seeing where the summary is incorrect.
Apparently they see that disposing of food in trash bins instead of compost is a waste. I don't see the problem with the headline.
If you read TFA, the law seems to be about getting people to put stuff in the right bin. TFS makes it sound like the law is about waste. TFS seems and the headline seem to be deliberately misleading
Here's a quote from TFA:
“The point isn’t to raise revenue,” he said. “We care more about reminding people to separate their materials.”
Apparently they see that disposing of food in trash bins instead of compost is a waste. I don't see the problem with the headline.
That isn't what samzenpus is trying to get you to believe. samzenpus is a big believer in the conspiracy of the nanny state - see my journal article that links to all the bullshit he has funneled through to the front page - and he is trying to support the notion that the dirty hippies running Seattle are trying to force everyone to eat moldy vegetables. He isn't describing the wastefulness of compostable material entering the regular waste stream, he is trying to stir up fear of the imminent government takeover and micromanagement of your life.
He could have fit a headline in up there that accurately summarizes the article, but he chose not to. In the same amount of space, a headline along the lines of "Seattle passes ordinance to encourage composting of waste food" would have been orders of magnitude more accurate and informative. He chose this awful headline to stir up excitement with the conservative base that has been steadily taking over what used to be a technology site here at slashdot.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Slashdot: "Seattle Passes Laws To Keep Residents From Wasting Food"
Seattle Times: "Seattle OKs $1 fine for adding too much food to garbage bins
Seattle residents could start getting small fines next year for putting too much compostable material into the trash."
Those two titles don't agree with each other. The goal is not about stopping food waste but to make sure that compostable material does not end up in the trash.
Somebody failed reading comprehension.
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.
If the conservatives didn't have the overwhelming majority voice here then why do all the front page articles sway to their side when they are about political topics?
I know it's hard to believe but there are more than 2 sides to the political spectrum. There's not just conservatives and
liberals. You're probably right that the majority of slashdot is "anti nanny state" but that doesn't mean that the majority
are conservatives. The "anti nanny state" people are a mixture of anarchists, libertarians, conservatives, independents,
and probably a few other groups I'm forgetting.
If you want proof that slashdot is not majority conservative then look at how slashdot responds to issues like drug laws,
global warming, evolution, the big bang, gay marriage, or anything religious and see if you still have the same opinion.
It's a strange day. People read the article and rant about a summary they didn't read.
Yes. Choosing to cook brussel sprouts (aka stillborn cabbages) is poor planning.
They do make good 'edible' missiles.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Seattle collect compostable material from residents using a separate bin from the garbage bin. They in fact collect 3 kinds of bins; garbage, compostable, and recyclable.
A vital detail that those outside the city (and many within it) don't know - and of course won't get from the inflammatory OMG! NANNY STATE! headline/summary - is that the City of Seattle doesn't have a local landfill. Hasn't for many years; there's no nearby space. Instead, all garbage is loaded onto train cars - hundreds of them a day - and sent by rail to a landfill in rural Oregon, about 250 miles away. That was the cheapest alternative for the city, even though it involves paying twice (once to transport it, and again to the landfill operator). But it's still expensive.
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Given that it's in the best interest of the City _and_ its ratepayers to reduce the amount of landfillable waste (aka number of train cars) in favor of more economic alternatives; specifically, recycling and composting, both of which are able to be handled within a few dozen miles of the city, at much lower cost than the landfill trains. The alternative is to have even more and longer trains and higher rates for garbage for everyone.
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Kind of the opposite of a nanny state; this is pure and simple economics. If the spectre of a few $1 fines for the few residents who can't be bothered to separate their greasy pizza boxes into another bin makes everyone's garbage rates lower, then I'm all for it.
Not a good explanation at all, just a clumsy attempt to justify poor writing.
When the vast majority of the population talks of 'wasting food' they mean one thing - allowing otherwise edible material to become inedible. What happens AFTER it becomes inedible does not matter in the slightest. It does not matter if you put the stuff into the trash or compost, as far as being FOOD it has been wasted.
A headline of 'Seattle Passes Law to Encourage Recycling Organic Material' would actually convey what happened. You may or may not agree with such a law, but at least you know what it is.
A headline of 'Seattle Passes Law to Keep Residents From Wasting Food' tells you NOTHING about what they actually did. Are they going to restrict how many groceries a family can buy? Are they going to check your refrigerator to make sure you don't let leftovers go bad? Are they going to fine you for discard any food? The only reason to write such a stupid headline is as flamebait.
Dude, a properly cooked brussel sprout is HEAVEN. It takes skill to make them right. Next time you are out at a higher end restaurant and they offer them, order them, trust me on this. My evil stepmother used to make me eat them and i hated them with a passion until i had one that was properly prepared.
Good-bye
Lightly coat in olive oil. Lightly toss in sea salt (or Jane's Mixed Up Salt, if you're in the south.) Roast at 350F for one hour. They come out salty and crispy on the outside, and tender and sweet on the inside. Consume that day as they don't keep very well. But they're so delicious it shouldn't be a problem!
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.