And the coming of the NEW LAWS.
As of the first minute of January 01, 2005, at least two new and very stupid laws took effect in Washington State. One state-wide and one local.
The state-wide law is Washington’s new Minimum Wage, now set @ $7.35, making our low wage earners the highest paid in the nation.
Great, now my Big Mac Meal will cost over $6!
Those who dropped out of high-school or and have little or no job skills are being rewarded for their sloth by the state nanny government.
And the left wonders why half the citizens of the state wanted a Republican for Governeor.
In local news….
If you live or own a business within the city limits of Seattle, YOU ARE NOW REQUIRED BY LAW TO RECYCLE!
Luckily, I live just outside the city limits, but I do work for the company who picks up the trash and recycle for over half of the residences and businesses in the city.
Here is how it works.
All paper, cardboard, aluminum, tin, glass, plastic and yardwaste must be put into your city supplied recycle container.
If there are any of these items in your trash, your container will not be picked up until they are removed. You will be notified of your VIOLATION by an adhesive note left on your container. There will also be a note entered into the city’s computer (by way of my company’s comuter, which are interconnected to the city) so that if the note ‘falls off the can’, you can call to see if that was the reason you were not picked up.
Only warnings will be given in the 2005 calender year.
But starting January 1, 2006, you will get three warning and then a $50 fine. This fine will continue to be issued every pickup (usually 1xweek) until the issue is resolved.
So far, there are no provisions for they city to confiscate your home if you do not pay these fines (like with property tax issues), but just wait, they’ll figure that part out.
And don’t go thinking that you can go and bribe your garbageman to ‘overlook’ your violations!
My drivers will be watched over by city inspectors, who will place recyclable material in various trash cans daily and then wait for the driver to roll up on them.
If the driver does the ‘proper’ proceedure and start to write up a notice, the inspector will roll up to the driver, let him know he ‘passed the test’ and let the driver carry on his route.
If the driver just dumps the container and moves on, the city inspector writes my company a ticket and fines us.
My company is still in negotiations with the driver’s union as to how many fines the driver can collect before he is warned, warned again and then fired.
And I am positive that the union will blame any firings not on the city for their stupid laws or the driver for their lack of work ethic, but on my company. Yay!
And here is the kicker, pulled from the linked article above:
In all, the initiatives could boost the city’s recycling rate by 6.2 percent, according to Seattle Public Utilities. The city’s goal is a 60 percent recycling rate by 2010. Seattle’s rate was 39.7 percent in 2002, the most recent year for which statistics are available.
The city has a goal of 60% recycling rate.
They’re current rate is under 40%.
This and some other new initiatives will boost the city’s recycle rate by just over 6%.
So, even with a new set of laws that include a threat of fines and a pile of trash left on the sidewalk infront of your house, the city will not meet its own goals.
And they knew this going into it.
For Brent @ The Ville, who was turned away by the server for some strange reason;
Minimum Wage Increase: Struggling single mothers will now have to pay $10.00 more per month for day care. Why? Because the day care now has to pay it’s female teenage employees more per hour.
Who gets hurt? The struggling single mothers.
The minimum wage increase is really a forced tax increase. Now the state and local governments have more money to tax on those weekly paychecks…
Get out of Washington while you can…Run!
Brent
It’ll be a rude awakening for all those King County libs, when they find out that they have to get their coffee-grasping, SUV-wheeling hands dirty rasslin’ what we know is garbage so that the recycling companies (no offense, sir) can make a better profit.
I put out my paper and cardboard boxes, but that’s all. I’m not going to separate the rest of it. Lake Forest Park, BTW, has unitary recycling. You put all your recyclables into one bin, but you don’t have to separate them.
I could go for that, but bagging three different kinds of glass, two different kinds of cans and several different types of plastic as well as paper in individual bags is for the birds.
To consider fining someone who refuses to do that is absurd. I predict a little “greenie” revolution here, and this law will be DOA before it’s implemented next January. The legal principle is simple: John Q Citizen is being forced into servitude to improve the bottom line of the waste companies, and since the government gets their slice, the governments’ bottom line as well.
Sounds like a violation of the 14th Amendendment to me. Where’s a good liberal lawyer when you need one?
BTW, businesses have this requirement now in PDX, have had it for years, and I’ve never heard of a single prosecution.