Tag Archives: trash

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 →

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 →

‘Where does it go?’ — No big changes for Seattle recycling… yet

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Inside a Seattle sorting facility (Image: CHS)

The short version: After a study, there will be no immediate changes to Seattle’s curbside recycling program — even though your “aspirational recycling” efforts are gumming up the system.

The long version is more detailed.

Seattle and King County are loving recycling to death. People are so excited about putting items in the blue bin instead of the black one, that it’s become a problem. The two main culprits are not properly cleaning items before recycling them, and putting things in recycling that aren’t actually recyclable – a phenomenon called aspirational recycling.

Residents are putting items in so often that China, which had been the market for about half of our recyclables, pulled out of the market. (It’s not just us. China is refusing recyclables from across the country.) The problem, say experts, are that items like plastic wrap, individual plastic bags, and soiled glass and plastic among others, gum up the works in the recycling machinery. Continue reading →

Can do? City working with two Capitol Hill clubs after big trash and recycling bills

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Seattle Public Utilities says it is working with two Capitol Hill clubs that have racked up big garbage charges after a program to remove dumpsters from Pike/Pine streets was rolled out this fall.

Ownership at Neumos and Chop Suey have complained about large bills, SPU says, after joining other area businesses in the change to three-times-a-day garbage, and twice-a-day recycling pickup using plastic bags in an effort to remove dumpsters from sidewalks and streets to make the neighborhood, officials hope, cleaner and safer.

For some, the program is also more expensive. Neumos co-owner Jason LaJeunesse has complained of what he says is a 255% jump in the club’s garbage bill under the new system which puts the 10th/Pike establishment on pace for more than $4,000 per month in trash and recycling pickup fees. “Have you guys heard any grumblings from business owners about the extreme financial hikes in the city mandated garbage program?” LaJuenesse asked in an email sent to media earlier this month. “Neumos is 35-40k a year more, when we were guaranteed it would be a 17% hike in cost.”

While SPU says Chop Suey has also complained of a big jump, other business owners around Pike/Pine CHS spoke with said the costs were high but in line with past charges. Continue reading →

EcoDistrict is diving for dumpster solutions on Capitol Hill

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(Image: Kate Clark via Flickr)

(Image: Kate Clark via Flickr)

We all contribute to it, but most people never want to think about trash until it becomes a totally unavoidable problem. Some would say the dumpsters around Pike/Pine have reached that tipping point.

As part of their mission to foster a more livable urban neighborhood, the Capitol Hill EcoDistrict will use $10,000 from a city grant to develop solutions to make the neighborhood’s dumpsters less of a nuisance.

Finding a way to get the dumpsters out of the public right of way will be near the top of the to-do list.

“You can’t permanently store garbage receptacles in the right of way,” said EcoDistrict director Joel Sisolak. “But the challenge is if you don’t put them in the right of way, where can you put them?” Continue reading →