Posted on 01/28/2015 4:05:22 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
In Seattle, wasting food will now earn you a scarlet letter — well, a scarlet tag, to be more accurate.
The bright red tag, posted on a garbage bin, tells everyone who sees it that you've violated a new city law that makes it illegal to put food into trash cans.
"I'm sure neighbors are going to see these on their other neighbors' cans," says Rodney Watkins, a lead driver for Recology CleanScapes, a waste contractor for the city. He's on the front lines of enforcing these rules.
Seattle is the first city in the nation to fine homeowners for not properly sorting their garbage. The law took effect on Jan. 1 as a bid to keep food out of landfills. Other cities like San Francisco and Vancouver mandate composting, but don't penalize homeowners directly.
As Watkins made the rounds in Maple Leaf, a residential neighborhood of Seattle, earlier this month, he appeared disheartened to find an entire red velvet cake in someone's trash bin. Any household with more than 10 percent food in its garbage earns a bright red tag notifying it of the infraction.
"Right now, I'm tagging probably every fifth can," Watkins says. "I don't know if that's just the holidays, or the fact that I'm actually paying a lot more attention."
Watkins doesn't have to comb through the trash — the forbidden items are plain to see.
"You can see all the oranges and coffee grounds," he says, raising one lid. "All that makes great compost. You can put that in your compost bin and buy it back next year in a bag and put it in your garden."
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
More likely feces disguised in McDonald’s bags.
I’d make a huge sign in the shape and color of the shaming tag and announce I throw out food waste and they can kiss my asp.
so, garbage collectors are going to inspect what you throw out? That’s going to add a lot of time and money to garbage collection costs...
Expect a HUGE INCREASE in vermin and pests as residents try to hide discarded food.
Ding~! Ding~! Ding~! We have a winner!
put that in your compost bin and buy it back next year in a bag
Why not just have your own compost bin?
We visited Seattle for a long weekend several years ago on a mileage run flight (it put my wife into Gold status for the next year), as we had never been there. The number of homeless everywhere was pretty astounding. They had taken over a very nice pocket park immediately adjacent to a major tourist draw, Pike Place Market, which is just up the hill from some of the cruise ship docks, rendering it all but unusable to regular folks on the day we were there. It was pretty obvious that the town was very, very friendly to “urban outdoorsmen,”
We had a great time on our visit, but I was especially aware of my surroundings everywhere, and cabbed some trips after dark that I might have walked in another city due to warnings from locals about muggings by these guys.
Run through the comments to NPR. These people are begging for a dictator.
“Right now, I’m tagging probably every fifth can,” Watkins says. “I don’t know if that’s just the holidays, or the fact that I’m actually paying a lot more attention.”
And ANOTHER petit king is born.
[Perhaps they’ll next require subjects to wash their garbage before placing it in the trash can.]
Don’t give them any more ideas.
A booming market for incinerators.
A thousand years ago when I was working my way through college, I worked in a small bakery. We had a deal with a local farmer. He got all our food waste, stale bread, burned items etc and we got eggs and milk in exchange.
Such a deal today would probably violate a dozen state and federal laws.
No, that was the first time I'd ever seen that ad. And I appreciated the opportunity. Thanks.
ABSO-DAMN-LUTELY!
The emo-hipsters have realized they have tremendous political power. They can vote multiple times in the same day and throw elections (they crowed about it in FL in 2012 on social media).
The Uniparty has done their best to indoctrinate them womb-to-tomb with Socialism, and they have embraced it with gusto.
And being a Good Socialist Citizen means the agenda is compulsory.
Don't trust anyone under thirty.
If one tosses out meddlesome politicians, what bin do they go in. Compostable? Toxic waste?
And there's a solution for that: it's called Agenda 21.
So what will be the impact (pun intended) on Seattle’s sewage pipes?
Yeah - I saw that non-sequitur too.
How does the compost rule work for apartment buildings, especially high-rises? Hallway tumblers (with surgical masks doused in floral spray for smell mitigation)?
And I supposed it’s illegal to keep chickens...
Chickens are great - they take food waste and make nice tasty eggs. They’re pretty, and they sing nice crooning little songs.
And, liberals don’t want you to have them. Probably because it smacks too much of “farm life”, and it gives the owner some sense of independence from the “hive”.
Not to detract from the liberal foolishness, what the solution is to put in a worm bin. It gets rid of all your kitchen garbage except meat products and it doesn’t breed rats.
People who push recycling should be shamed as energy-wasters. It takes far more energy to recycle old stuff than it does to produce new.
And as far as composting goes, although it isn’t mentioned in the article, no doubt personal composting is Verboten there, as only the August presences of the city elders are competent enough to know how to do it properly. The lumpen proletariat cannot be trusted to handle so complex a task as composting.
Crap like this is the reason sane people don’t want to live in the Blue areas anymore. And all too often, those who remain are either so destitute that they won’t have to comply, or are wealthy enough that they don’t really notice the stifling effect of all the “good intentions” regulations they impose until it all starts falling in on itself (at which point they just move). If it’s starting in Seattle, it won’t be long now before it starts showing up here on the East Coast, which is why I’m checking out property in unincorporated areas of Texas.
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