The red badge of shame

In Seattle, the trash men will tape a rude flier like this to your garbage can if they notice any banana peels, pizza boxes, moldy bread, chicken bones, dirty paper towels, napkins, pizza boxes, etc. etc. They are educating us on the new law before fines take effect in July.

The regular recycling (cans, bottles) has a separate bin, and now kitchen garbage goes in with the yard waste. Yes, this is a nasty mixture in warm weather, especially for poor gardeners who also have to use the same bin for their weeds and clippings.

Of course rotting food outdoors attracts all sorts of undesirable things, so the city suggests storing your kitchen garbage "in the refrigerator or freezer" until trash pick-up day.

Well, a person has to draw the line somewhere.  My new secret vice? The garbage disposal.

 Oh, the good old days of urban sanitation...

We got our first shame notice in January.  At the time I was more annoyed than embarrassed.  I asked a friend who throws out everything, and she didn't get a notice on her can.  Is this fair? Sure, after weeks of holiday entertaining we had a fair amount of Christmas "trash."  But it still surprised me to get nailed because they picked up on a dark morning. How could they even see what was in our bags?  

There's a very long list of illegal trash so it would be great if the city just told us the few things we can still throw away.  And now poor Seattle has become a laughing stock of the nation.  This month the AARP Bulletin wrote about our garbage law in their "You've Got to be Kidding- News Stories That Make Our Blood Boil" section.  They said something along the lines of Seattle is trying to reach the "Utopia of universal composting by using Maoist public shaming." Ha!

OK, enough complaining for one morning. We're enjoying a one day heat wave in advance of the pineapple express arriving with rain tomorrow.  I'm headed out to the foothills.