USA – Wasteless in Seattle

The city of Seattle is moving beyond recycling to preventing garbage itself as the next generation of social and civic responsibility, Seattle Public Utilities is launching an initiative called Wasteless in Seattle.



With the long-term goal of "zero waste," the city hopes to drastically reduce the need for landfills and to lower disposal, transportation and energy costs. Through various programmes, including mandatory recycling and fines for violators beginning in January, the city is urging its employees, residents and businesses to rethink how they dispose of everything from egg shells to electronics.



"We‘‘re going to have to make use of the landfills on the east side of the mountains for the foreseeable future, but we‘‘re darned if we‘‘re not going to get massive amounts of waste reduced from that flow," said City Councilman Jim Compton, chairman of the Utilities and Technology Committee.



Which is where the trash talk comes in. Garbage prevention is far more than recycling, city officials say. It is a comprehensive strategy that includes a "triple bottom line" — environmental and public-health considerations as well as economic ones. "Recycling is throwing something away that can be made into a different product, but waste prevention means not making the waste in the first place" said Chris Luboff, solid-waste planning supervisor for Seattle Public Utilities. "We‘‘re trying to broaden that concept." Luboff said the city‘‘s budget, approved late last year, includes an extra US$400,000 a year for waste prevention.



Meet with Seattle Public Utilities officials, and they will show you paper-free PowerPoint presentations of garbage-free programs. Copy machines are now set to default to double-sided copies on recycled paper. After all, each year the city of Seattle uses a heap of paper higher than Mount Rainier, said Jetta Antonakos, head of the utility‘‘s new paper-waste-reduction effort called "paper cuts." The city wants more electronic documents and presentations and fewer multiple copies of large reports.



Then there is "product stewardship," which is an effort to encourage manufacturers to take more environmental responsibility for their products and to create materials that cause fewer disposal problems. The effort includes "take-back" programs being developed for computer monitors, furniture and possibly even prescription drugs. The utility is also moving toward more "green purchasing" — buying non-toxic window cleaners, janitorial supplies and "environmentally preferable" electronics.



Increasingly, "if someone wants to sell a product to us, they have to go through a screening process," Antonakos said. "In the old days, garbage was mostly organics, then came the modern era with plastics and bottles and tin cans, which are relatively easy to recycle," Luboff said. "But now, we have more complicated, combination products like cell phones and computers, with cathode-ray tubes, lead in the glass, toxics in the plastic and other hazardous materials."



Seattle, which became a national recycling leader 15 years ago, is also embarking on an aggressive program to reach a goal of diverting 60 percent of garbage from landfills by recycling. Now that percentage is less than 40 percent. On July 1, many North End businesses such as restaurants were given new containers to encourage recycling; South End businesses will begin the program Aug. 1. Since April, residents have been converting to 90-gallon containers under a new mandatory recycling program. As of January, fines will be levied against those who throw away such things as paper and cans, which should be recycled.



"Taking environmental and health concerns into consideration has prompted us to look at everyth