SEATTLE — Some small businesses in Seattle are fed up with the city’s garbage removal service, calling it nothing short of price gouging.
The city’s Clear Alleys Program eliminates dumpsters with a goal of creating safer, cleaner alleys. Business owners told KING 5 the program falls short of its promises and comes with a high price tag.
At River, an event space in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood, crowds of all types come in for different gatherings. Behind the scenes, co-owner Jessican Ghyvoronsky said keeping it running is no easy feat. Every event has a wide variety of costs that go into it, like staffing, catering and cleaning up. However, she said few of those costs are as expensive as getting rid of the garbage.
The Clear Alleys Program began in 2009 and is aimed at making five specific parts of Seattle safer, the downtown core, Pioneer Square, Columbia City, the Chinatown-International District and the Pike Pine corridor. In these areas, the dumpsters, known to attract criminal activity, have been removed. Instead, contractor, Recology, picks up the trash three times per day.
Business owners say they had sticker shock when they learned the cost of the garbage service.
“We’re barely scaping by. We’re really trying and our trash bags, of all things, cost $300 for 30 bags,” Ghyvoronsky said.
At River, trash and recycling services cost $346.20 per month. That breaks down to $8.20 per bag, plus a service fee. If you need more bags you pay more.
“If somebody ever breaks into my business, the last thing I want them to steal are my trash bags,” Ghyvoronsky said.
Just a few miles north in Seattle’s Roosevelt neighborhood, her husband, Mikhail, who owns Santo Coffee, pays a fraction of that - a flat fee of $240 and can use as many bags as he wants. At River, if they used the same number of bags, they’d pay more than two and a half times that, nearly $700.
“I think it’s reasonable but I don’t think the downtown price is reasonable,” he said.
“It doesn’t make sense, the math, the numbers, the service, it’s not adding up in a way that serves the businesses whatsoever. I don’t understand it,” Ghyvoronsky said.
KING 5 asked the city why the bags cost so much and were told the truck, driver and disposal are built into the price of each bag. The city would not provide KING 5 with a cost breakdown.
“It feels pretty unfair that these small business owners, they’re bringing something special, they’re bringing a culture to the downtown area and they’re the ones that have to pay the extra fees, it just doesn’t feel fair,” Mikhail said. “For that price you’d think they’d have someone to deliver them on a silver platter.”
If businesses do not use Recology’s bags, they could face a higher fee for removal.
“There have been a couple of times where I’ve had to use my own trash bags and take them off site and put them in my car which is gross,” Ghyvoronsky said.
The city said the bags are thicker than regular trash bags, but business owners say they don’t hold up.
“If I were to stuff my bags like I do, the handles fall off, every single time, “she said.
The company said it welcomes feedback and are ready to help if people call.
Ghyvoronsky said it’s also difficult to get the bags delivered in a timely manner.
“I went on a call with Recology leadership to try to understand the reasoning behind why it’s so expensive, why it takes so long to get the bags, and they said, no, you should be getting your bags within two days and I literally laughed in their faces” she said. “What do you mean two days? I would be lucky to get my bag order in two weeks.”
In the last six months Ghyvoronsky has emailed the city 10 times and called even more, but it didn’t help.
“I asked the city person, should I do a petition, like an official government petition, and they said you could but it’s going to take too long, go to the news,” she said. “We’re trying to revitalize this area to be another artist community, to be another art district and stuff like this can get us to move out? Maybe.”