Seattle Public Utilities has reported that food scraps take up about one-third or 45,000 tons of residential trash each year and solving this problem has been made easier for single family homes by giving them the solution to create their own food composting and yard waste compost bins at their own leisure.

But what about multi-family homes that have to share waste bins or don't have the option for food composting in their housing complexes?

A program called Food Waste for Apartments and Condominiums Test Project began late last November of to start solving this problem. Seattle Public Utilities took nine multi-family housing complexes and incorporated a six month trial program to promote and give an opportunity to recycle leftover food, house plants and compostable materials. Each complex was given two large compost bins (similar to the flip lid garbage bins on wheels), smaller compost boxes to put in each unit, compostable plastic bags and informational packets.

The first three months of the trial program was paid for by Seattle Utilities and the last three were paid for by the property managers of the selected complexes. After the six months, property managers then had the option to continue or discontinue the service.

Payment for the service was based on the size of each cart a complex decided on having on their property. Cart sizes were 32, 64 or 96 gallon containers and prices ranged from $17 to $32.

"There are a lot more condos and apartments being built in Seattle and right now there is no food waste pick up that is . . . for them," said Emma Johnson, an intern for Marcia Rutan, planning and developments specialist for Seattle Public Utilities. "So we wanted to market a program that marketed specifically food waste compost that residential families were getting services for and apartments and condos did not have access to."

Imperial Crown Manor in Crown Hill on Northwest 92nd was one of the nine multi-family buildings that were chosen in the first phase of the trial program. Asked by Seattle Utilities if they'd be interested in participating, resident manager Andy Zavada said, "The consensus was up to me to make the decision, I got out the information to the tenants and it was their choice to participate or not. I got some positive feedback from a few units out of the 44 in the building."

However, a problem Zavada had run into with the program was a language barrier he had with tenants and the informational packets that were passed out. He explained that a big percentage of his tenants did not speak English as their first language so compliance of people composting was no more than 10 percent.

However, being an advocate for recycling, appreciative in participating and hoping the program will expand to a lot of other commercial apartment buildings around the city, Zavada asked Seattle Utilities to continue an education process. This would include an opportunity to give out information in different languages for people who spoke English as their second language. It would let them know what is available to them and why the program is good for their homes and the environment.

Seattle Utilities also made sure to monitor what should be altered or what should stay at each site by observing the needs of participants during the first phase.

Now in their second phase they have added 35 more properties in different neighborhoods around the city.

Initially based on networking with properties that had already signed up in the first phase Seattle Utilities also based those chosen on demographics and hired a consultant who worked to find those that would be interested and excited about the program.

Lockhaven Apartment in Ballard were asked to be a part of the second phase which began in mid-August.

"There are things that came about with our involvement in the program, but the main thing was the general effort to reduce the amount of things that got into the garbage dumpster we had," said Earl Ecklund, president of Lockhaven Development Co.

In times past the capacity of Lockhaven's dumpster was being pushed over the limit. So to reduce the overflow, they encouraged residents to recycle things that were recyclable. They now have more slack in their dumpster and see food waste to be a space saver as well.

"We are planning to expand this program in the next couple of years because it also has a significantly lower fee than garbage," said Hans VanDusen, of Seattle Public Utilities.

Since the program is currently only on a trial basis, interested property owners of apartments and condominiums can start the composting process by signing up for yard waste or commercial food waste pick up which is currently available to them.

For information they can visit www.seattle.gov/binsandbarrels or call 684.0190 for more details.

Allison Espiritu can be reached at 783-1244 or allisone@robinsonnews.com.