I'm a Seattle resident now! Some questions though

[stretchad]

Well, we made it across the country, and miraculously so did our stuff. The movers were here unloading everything on Tuesday and I spent all day yesterday unpacking, and shopping at the essential move in stores...Target, Bed Bath and Beyond, and the Grocery.

On the subject of the Grocery store, can I just say I am completely blown away by metropolitan market in Admiral. It is the most AMAZING grocery store ever. I spent way too much restocking our pantry yesterday.

Anyway here are my questions...
Tell me about the trash/recycling here. In our rental house we have a recycling bin, trash bin, yard waste bin, and this black box. What do I put in each of those? Obviously recycling is paper, cardboard, and recyclables...but what do I do with yard waste? I mean, the box is gigantic, and I can't imagine that one needs a whole can for that. And, what's the black box for? Back in WI, we only had recycling and trash.

Second question...
Any tips for getting our cars registered? I have to get emissions testing done, right?

[Deleted]

Anyway here are my questions...
Tell me about the trash/recycling here. In our rental house we have a recycling bin, trash bin, yard waste bin, and this black box. What do I put in each of those? Obviously recycling is paper, cardboard, and recyclables...but what do I do with yard waste? I mean, the box is gigantic, and I can't imagine that one needs a whole can for that. And, what's the black box for? Back in WI, we only had recycling and trash.

Recycle- www.wmnorthwest.com/seattle/guidelines/recycling.htm it's free here, so dump all of your recyclable things in and you'll pay less in garbage
Yard waste- www.wmnorthwest.com/seattle/guidelines/foodyard.htm You'll be amazed at how much goes in there if you compost your food too
I've never seen the black box. I wonder if that's a seattle proper thing?

Second question...
Any tips for getting our cars registered? I have to get emissions testing done, right?

Yep, the cars need an emissions test before you get them registered here. Check the wait times for testing before you go: www.emissiontestwa.com/waittime.aspx

[Deleted]

And welcome (officially)!

[Deleted]

Also, I am pretty sure cardboard goes in yard waste. I know pizza boxes for sure go in yard waste.

[Deleted]

Pizza boxes in yard waste, Amazon boxes in recycle. Or at least that's what I do.

[jennlin]

no help, just welcome!

[madDawg228]

Welcome!

I live at an apartment in Seattle, so I'm not the best with the residential/home recycling program... but I think the black box is for food waste/compostable stuff. From what I understand you can put things like pizza boxes in the big yard waste container, and the little box is for smaller food waste, it's supposed to encourage you to compost.

My last apartment had a program like this, except since we were in an apartment we had small gray buckets that we were supposed to leave out and the apartment would combine them all into a large bin.

[InBetweenDays]

First, welcome!

So Seattle has mandatory recycling and food waste programs so each house should have:

*Garbage can (sometimes this is a smaller black box similar to the box on the left in the first photo). As a pp mentioned the rates vary on the size of can you use, so if you don't need a 32-gallon garbage can it would be worth it to opt for the smaller black box.
*Recycling bin - all of our recycling gets mixed together: cardboard, glass, plastic, etc. No need to separate.
*Yard waste and/or food waste bin - Some houses have large yard waste bins (on the right in the first photo) where you can dump all yard and food waste. Some houses don't need the large yard waste bin since they don't have much leaf/grass/yard clippings, so they have a smaller green food waste bin (photo of smaller food waste bin in second photo).

One thing to note - all food can go in the food waste bin. Eggs, egg shells, bones, meat, everything. And like the PP mentioned so can food soiled cardboard and paper. We often put any used paper towels in there. We separate all of our food waste and it really surprised me how much it is.

[fiddles]

Is the black box small? If so, it's probably food stuff. We have a smaller gray box thing that we are supposed to foot food scraps in.

Welcome!!

[Deleted]

Check the labels on the box....my alternate guess if its not what PP said is that it would be a remnant from when we used to have to separate out glass from the rest of the recyclables (I remember those being small and black).
In general, we're BIG into composting food scraps in with the yard waste around here. Lucky you if you get to do that in an apartment, we didn't and I was always so mad!

Welcome!!

[karebear219]

I don't have any more to add but welcome!

[stretchad]

Thanks everyone! This is helpful for sure.

Do you guys have separate bins indoors for the food waste or a compost bin?

[InBetweenDays]

We have a small compost bin we got at Storables that looks like the photo below. We just keep it under our kitchen sink and buy the compostable liners to keep it from getting all gunky.

[joenali]

The small black box is a garbage can. Only garbage. The blue giant trash looking bin is for recycling and the green can is for food and yard waste.

[Deleted]

My compost bin sits on my counter. I bought a ceramic one so that it can go through the dishwasher. This one does a good job at containing smells. I empty it every other day.

www.worldmarket.com/product/ceramic-compost-bucket-white.do?&from=Search

[mkate710]

I live in the suburbs, so I'm no help with the trash questions.

Cars get emissions testing every other year. My BFF moved her car registration from CA to WA a couple years ago, and was told she didn't need an emissions test that year. But, it could have been that her emissions test in CA covered the requirement, I'm not sure. We have a pretty good vehicle registration site that should walk you through what's needed.

Welcome!! I hope you continue to enjoy Seattle. Met Market is pretty awesome!!

[stretchad]

Thanks everyone! Very helpful. We got the cars emissions tested today. Apparently mine didn't need it but DH's did. Hopefully tomorrow we can get the registration stuff complete!

And, I feel better about the whole garbage, yard/food waste and recycling thing! Thanks!

[Deleted]

Welcome!

I've never had my car emissions tested. I've owned it for 5.5 years. It's not required in my county.