22 Jul 2005 @ 01:42, by Raymond Powers
City of Seattle Starts Down Long Road of Producing "Zero Waste" for its Landfills
Monday, July 18, 2005
By DEBERA CARLTON HARRELL SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
The city of Seattle is talking trash.
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 programs, 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 $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 everything, including waste, differently," said Julie Vorhes, solid-waste planner for Seattle Public Utilities. "For example, a triple-bottom line asks, 'What's the difference in pollution and health impacts of using biodiesel instead of diesel?' " Vorhes said costs are hard to pinpoint because the effort is so new. "We can say that recycling saves money," she said. "But waste prevention is a different animal. We're not just asking the question about economics."
Luboff said it costs the city to collect and inspect recycled materials and to promote programs, but if customers can divert 40 to 60 percent of material from landfills, the city would save $2 million a year.
Some programs, developed in the past few years, are growing -- and showing promise.
Use-It-Again Seattle, a program featuring community "garage sales" throughout the city, allows residents to drop off and pick up items free (no electronics, appliances, couches or mattresses). The effort recycled 60 tons of metal last year, and an estimated 221 tons of materials were reused and diverted from landfills.
Another initiative, the Take-It-Back Network, saw about 600 tons of computers monitors and other components returned in 2004 to participating retail stores. There are also consortiums that will intercept items that shouldn't go in landfills, such as the Rechargeable Battery Recycling
Coalition.
A city "green building" program, aimed at recycling, water and energy conservation and waste prevention, is also reaping results, city officials say. In 11 city projects last year, nearly 57,000 tons -- or $560,000 worth
-- of salvaged or reused materials were kept out of landfills.
"That's a big recapture," Luboff said, noting that the city -- taxpayers -- ultimately must pay for everything thrown away.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Call Seattle Public Utilities at 206-684-3000 or visit www.seattle.gov/html/CITIZEN/utility.htm P-I reporter Debera Carlton Harrell can be reached at 206-448-8326 or deberaharrell@seattlepi.com.
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