Results tagged “seattlepublicutilities”

It's like the Friday after Thanksgiving for compost-lovers, as Seattle Public Utilities announces they are slashing the price of their compost bins (retail $100) to $25. The food waste and yard waste friendly bins are available for public purchase--Seattle residents only--from now until the end of September. And, they have $75 rain barrels too!

So far so good, but because there isn't money in the general fund for the refunds, the refund notice included news of a temporary rate increase for SPU customers equal to 10.2 percent (about $59--that extra $14 may be going to cover the $4.2 million in court fees the suit racked up). Only in Seattle can news that we’ve all been bilked for cash be accompanied by news that the bilk goes on.

CleanScapes, the new "green" local garbage company, has been driving us nuts here on Capitol Hill, with up to three or four trucks parking various times of the day near the intersection of Bellevue and Thomas, leaving us wondering why they need so many trucks when they clearly have nothing to do. Well, it turns out, they . "CleanScapes and Waste Management, which divide the city between them, have skipped 5 percent of pickups at apartments, condos, and businesses with dumpster service, according to SPU officials." Nice.

By now all Seattle Public Utilities customers (so, everyone) should have received a brochure outlining the new recycling and compost guidelines, which go into effect today. Meat scraps, fish, dairy, shells and bones are now allowed in your food and yard waste bin. Plastic lids and foil are finally recyclable, too. For a full list of changes, see the Seattle Public Utilities website. We're especially glad for the new composting guidelines, which have been too long coming.

As part of a push to clean up downtown, Seattle Public Utilities will be reclaiming 700 dumpsters from the alleys south of Denny and west of I-5. In order to maintain some kind of order, they'll increase the number of daily trash and recycling pick-ups from that area. We mandated a roundtable discussion of the move at Seattlest HQ so our readers can more intensely experience every facet of our hive blog-mind.

Every time we've looked out the window today, our garbage and recycling containers have lost more and more definition, gradually becoming absorbed into the gently sculpted snowscape that surrounds us. And we were wondering: Is the city really going to try to collect this garbage today? Turns out no: "Single-family residential garbage, yard waste, and recycling collection has been delayed in Seattle for today, Thursday, December 18, due to dangerous road conditions. Most business and apartment services will be collected on schedule." We can leave our containers at the curb one more day, but if tomorrow's a no-go, we have to save them for next week. (Though we can leave out twice as much garbage.) With even the garbage collectors having a snow day, our last vestiges of guilt about working at home have melted away.

Seattle Public Utilities has issued a water advisory for a 30-block area on Beacon Hill after a pipe burst during construction this morning. The SPU advises residents not to drink or cook with tap water, and they will be providing bottled water to residents in the area. If you have to use tap water, first strain it to remove dirt, then bring it to a boil, and lastly let it cool in a sanitized (like with bleach) container. If you live within these boundaries, you are under the water advisory: Bennett Street to the north, 16th Avenue to the east, 13th Avenue to the west, Graham Street to the south.

As mentioned on Slog yesterday, Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) has recommended that the City of Seattle remove the self-cleaning public toilets located in and around downtown Seattle.

There's a kind of folktale Polish wedding tradition that Seattlest has always thought was cool. It says that when your daughter is born you fire up the still and produce a barrel of vodka which you then bury somewhere on your farm. Twelve years later when that daughter is getting married you dig up the barrel and drink it at the wedding, the vodka having been infused with the flavors, and, more ephemerally, the spirit of the land.

Ever since Mayor Greg Nickels sent out a letter back in mid-February about Viaduct replacement financing, everyone who pays attention has been trying to figure out the math. We're all used to spin from City Hall, but there was a huge, crucial problem. In the letter, Nickels claimed that, "Today, with $3.2 billion already committed to the project, we have the resources needed to start building the tunnel."

-We felt really bad for that guy who fell down an elevator shaft in Bellevue a while back, and it's not like it's any less tragic now...but he did get the elevator to stop between floors in the first place by jumping up and down in it.

Seattlest read the book "Zodiac" by sci-fi author Neil Stephenson recently. The story is a sort of eco-thriller about an activist/scientist/environmentalist- type who goes around finding and plugging little pipes that drain toxic materials into the bay in Boston. Intrigue ensues and it's a decent book which you should read. That's fiction, though, right? Well, we bring it up because it was reported today that Swedish Medical Center has been discharging sewage into Lake Union since 1998.

Attention! Attention everyone! Seattlest would like to call to your attention the fact that Seattle Public Utilities is launching an initiative called Wasteless in Seattle, with the visionary goal of "zero waste." (Yes, the quotation marks make us nervous, too.)

It's hot today and it's going to continue through the weekend, but think twice about cranking open a fire hydrant NYC style. Despite assurances from the Seattle Times, all is not well with our region's water supply after the extremely dry winter. Typically we count on mountain snow to melt throughout the summer and provide our rivers and streams with a constant supply of fresh water. This year what snow there was is already gone.

Seattlest hearts recycling. We do it; we make fun of people who don't do it. But is anyone else out there kinda grossed out that the city wants to start recycling food scraps...by allowing said food scraps to be added to the 96-gallon yard-waste containers that are collected every two weeks?