Tag Archives: recycling

Why Seattle waste drivers aren’t getting pricked like sanitation workers in New York (but you should still dispose of your needles in a safer way)

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Automated garbage can lifts mostly protect Seattle collection drivers as the city’s garbage and recycling systems deal with an increase in consumer hypodermic needle use.

Seattle Public Utilities tells CHS it has not recorded an increase in needlestick injuries among contractors servicing the city. Unlike cities where crews manually lift trash bags, Seattle’s residential routes use mechanical arms to empty curbside carts directly into trucks, keeping drivers away from thin bags and protruding needles.

Cities with manual collection face different hazards. In New York City, where Department of Sanitation crews lift bags by hand, the agency has logged 49 needlestick injuries through early August. That surpassed the 46 incidents reported in 2025 and rose from 18 in 2020. The increase led New York to raise fines for improper needle disposal from $100 to $250. DSNY does not test recovered needles, but officials attribute the rise to more residents using at-home injectable drugs.

Manual collection remains standard in older, denser East Coast cities where narrow streets and row homes prevent automated side-loader trucks from operating. In Philadelphia, the city’s Community Life Improvement Program and Department of Sanitation deploy specialized teams equipped with puncture-resistant gear to clear corridors like Kensington, where union representatives with AFSCME District Council 33 have cited worker safety and punctures from loose needles during manual trash collection. In Boston, where contracted haulers physically toss bags into rear compactors, city public health officials conduct targeted daily needle sweeps along high-traffic corridors like the “Mass and Cass” area to clear loose syringes before curbside collection begins.

The municipal strain follows a broader shift documented by The New York Times, which reported last month that syringes and auto-injectors have migrated from clinical settings directly onto domestic bathroom vanities. According to the report, nearly one in five U.S. adults has tried an injectable GLP-1 medication like Ozempic, while consumer interest in injectable peptides and at-home fertility treatments like IVF — which grew nearly 40% between 2018 and 2026 — has routinely pushed medical sharps into households.

That proliferation has created new hazards in our waste The New York Times reports sanitation workers there frequently encounter exposed, loose needles when lifting plastic garbage bags, with one New York City department supervisor telling the paper that crews regularly open bags to find needles completely unshielded. The surge is also hitting retail businesses. The Times cited a Nordstrom Rack restroom that posted signs pleading with shoppers to stop dropping GLP-1 syringes into its public sharps containers due to the escalating fees the retailer pays to empty them. Continue reading →

Council notes: New recycling processing contract for Seattle, Social Housing Developer charter changes

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(Image: SPU)

The weekly full meeting of the Seattle City Council includes a vote a new contract for processing Seattle’s 215,000 to 220,000 tons of municipal recycling per year.

  • New recycling processing contract: Already blessed by council president Joy Hollingsworth and the utilities committee, the full council Tuesday is set to approve a new a new five-year processing contract with Waste Management that will pay the company in the range of $6 million a year for its services.. The agreement, which includes two three-year extension options, is slated to take effect in April 2027 following the expiration of the city’s current contract with Rabanco. While the contract will not begin operations until next year, Seattle Public Utilities is seeking City Council authorization now to grant Waste Management sufficient lead time to build out a new recycling material receiving facility and deploy advanced sorting equipment. Continue reading →

Seattle Public Utilities will roll out one free battery pick-up a year in 2026 — And is sorting out how to include apartment dwellers

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The aftermath of a June 2024 trash fire on Capitol Hill started by an improperly disposed battery

Seattle households should consider a new tradition in the new year — keeping an old battery bag.

Seattle Public Utilities has announced an expansion of its Special Item Pickup service beginning in April 2026 it says will make it easier for customers to safely dispose of items that are hard-to-recycle or require special handling.

Importantly, SPU says it is working out ways to make the service available to apartment dwellers and residents in multifamily housing.

“Currently, SPU customers can schedule on-demand pickup for items such as batteries, small electronics, mattresses, and appliances,” the announcement reads. “While this service is available today for a small fee, the new program will introduce one free annual pickup as a benefit to SPU residential customers to help make proper disposal simpler, safer, and more convenient.” Continue reading →

City says it had to clean up less trash in 2024 thanks to volunteers and enforcement

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Seattle Public Utilities is out with its 2024 “Clean City” report as it says citizens are volunteering more effort than ever to community clean-ups while its totals for debris collected from the public right of way actually dropped during the year.

“I’m proud we’re doing this work. Keeping Seattle neighborhoods cleaner helps residents thrive,” SPU General Manager and CEO Andrew Lee said in the announcement. “We welcome more residents and community organizations to join us in supporting Seattle’s diverse communities.”

SPU says its crews removed 1,765,421 pounds of debris from 1,550 blocks across the city’s right-of-way in 2024, down 7% from 2023 despite continued increased use of the Find It, Fix It “Service Request Mobile App.”

SPU credits “community engagement and education, enforcement efforts, and collaboration with other City of Seattle departments” for the reduction.

The Find It, Fix It app is focused on issues around cleanliness and rubbish but stats from the show that a bulk of the system’s calls are related to homelessness even though the app’s categories don’t show choices like “encampment” or “tents.” Instead, the calls are frequently reported under general inquiries, or “illegal dumping,” the most frequently used category in Find It, Fix It complaints. UPDATE: In a 2022 update, the app began accepting requests for an “Unauthorized Encampment.” Users are asked to use the category to “Report an unauthorized encampment that includes tents or structures assembled for habitation.” Continue reading →

Seattle sorting out what to do with recycled glass after closure of local bottle manufacturer

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A Strategic Materials facility (Image: Strategic Materials)

Seattle Public Utilities is looking for new solutions and encouraging residents to continue collecting cleaned jars and bottles after a major customer for recycled glass has shut down in the city. SPU says there remains a “strong demand for recycled glass nationally.”

Ardagh Glass Packaging, “the major glass bottle manufacturer in the Seattle area,” announced it has laid off 245 employees and permanently shuttered its E Marginal Way facility citing “ongoing pressure from low-priced imports,” SPU says.

“This recently announced closure has created unprecedented challenges for glass recycling in Seattle and neighboring jurisdictions,” SPU said this week about the shutdown.

SPU says it will continue to collect glass as it looks for new partners and the city and the county have convened a “a Glass Recycling Roundtable” with “regional and national industry partners and municipalities that is meeting regularly to develop short- and long-term solutions for sustainable glass recycling.” Continue reading →

You really shouldn’t throw away a battery in Seattle

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Seattle Public Utilities

You shouldn’t throw batteries in the trash anyhow but now it is against the rules in Seattle. City officials are scrambling to get the word out after Seattle Public Utilities quietly put new rules into place banning batteries from the garbage to start 2024 to address an increase in dangerous fires, environmental, and cost concerns.

The new rules ban trash disposal of common household batteries, more powerful batteries for vehicles and tools, and embedded batteries found in electronics, toys, computers, monitors, and e-bikes,

It’s an honor system. Continue reading →

Free paint recycling and disposal program touts success in first year in Seattle and state

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(Image: The Paint Laboratory)

A paint recycling program new to Washington is marking its first year of activity with a report showing growing success in the proper disposal of thousands of gallons of paint.

You can help by keeping any unused paint out of the garbage and dropping your unwanted cans at free collection sites across Seattle — including one on Capitol Hill.

PaintCare, which runs recycling programs across several states including Washington, says it collected 55,178 gallons of paint from King County businesses and households alone during its first year operating in the state after the start of Washington’s paint stewardship law.

While the bulk of the paint collected by PaintCare comes from its large volume pickup service for businesses and organizations with 100 gallons of paint or more to recycle, people with smaller amounts can also add to the stewardship by dropping off their cans at one of the more than 200 stores and facilities across the state signed up as collection sites under the program. Continue reading →

Grocery Outlet will be Capitol Hill/Central District collection point for pilot to test new option for plastic film and bag recycling

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Subscribe to CHS to help hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 🐦‍⬛
 

(Image: King County)

A pilot program will create a new option for putting tough to recycle plastic wrap and bags to use and keeping them from gumming up Seattle’s waste systems.

The just launched effort will add a new drop-off location to the MLK Grocery Outlet along with grocery stores around the county to collect the wraps, films, and bags to be turned into into recycled plastic pellets by British Columbia-based recycler Merlin Plastics. The pellets can be used to create new film packaging and are being tested for other uses. Continue reading →

Despite limited benefits, Seattle not necessarily trashing idea of every other week garbage pick-up

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(Image: City of Seattle)

It probably won’t reduce costs much and green-leaning Seattleites already compost and recycle enough that it probably wouldn’t result in more of that type of planet-friendly activity, but Seattle Public Utilities is looking at transitioning its garbage pick-up to an every-other-week schedule. A Seattle City Council committee will hear a briefing on the plans Tuesday.

Reducing pick-ups at single family homes and multifamily buildings not served by commercial providers would help reduce one key category of waste: SPU’s budget. Early cost reviews suggested a potential operational savings of up to 30% on garbage collection costs, SPU says. Continue reading →

Plan would expand King County’s only landfill one last* time — UPDATE

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King County needs more time to sort out a new era solution for getting rid of its copious mountains of trash — burning the garbage in a waste-to-energy like they do in densely populated areas of Europe, Japan, and.. checks notes… Spokane seems like a probable future.

But in the meantime, there is a plan to create a new addition to the county’s Cedar Hills Regional Landfill that officials say will give the giant garbage collecting facility — and the county’s only landfill –another 21 years of life. The King County Council will vote on the plan Monday.

UPDATE: The council announced Monday morning that the vote has been pushed back so officials have more time to consider newly proposed amendments to the legislation.

Continue reading →