Life is getting back to normal after last week’s snow storm. Seattle Public Schools will reopen Monday morning, and Metro Transit has returned all buses to normal routes, after canceling dozens of routes last week.

Seattle Public Utilities is back on its normal pickup schedule for garbage, recycling and yard waste starting Monday.

Residential customers that had their collections missed last week can set out double their normal amount of garbage, recycling and yard waste on their regularly scheduled collection day at no additional charge.

Extra recycling that doesn’t fit in the city-provided container should be placed in sturdy bins or boxes next to your recycling cart. Remember to flatten empty cardboard boxes and do not put recyclables inside of bags.

Extra yard waste that does not fit in the city-supplied cart should be set out in one of the following ways:
• A 32-gallon can with handles. Label your can “yard waste,” and fill it loosely, so that it will empty easily when turned upside down.
• Bundles, tied with fiber twine, up to 4-feet long by 2-feet in diameter. Do not use wire, nylon cording, or plastic banding to tie these bundles.
• Kraft paper bags, available at many home and garden retailers
• Reusable yard waste bags, made of polyethylene.

No food waste is allowed in these extra units.

Extra garbage should be placed in plastic bags or your own garbage can (up to 32 gallons), and put next to your regular garbage.

We’ll continue to update this post throughout the day.

Update 11:14 a.m.: According to KING 5, Gov. Gregoire has declared a state of emergency, 100,000 people are without power across the state, and one man died near Issaquah when he was hit by a falling tree.

Update 11 a.m.: If anyone has driven on neighborhood roads or taken the bus, please put a note in comments and tell us about it. We’re curious to know how well the buses are running.

One man took to his skis to get around the neighborhood (thanks to Lynn for the picture!)

Update Thursday 8:30 a.m.: The National Weather Service has issued an ice storm warning for the Seattle area until 12 p.m. today.

According to the NWS, an ice storm warning means “severe weather conditions are imminent or occurring. Significant amounts of ice accumulation will make travel dangerous or impossible. Travel is strongly discouraged…Ice accumulations will likely lead to snapped power lines and falling tree branches that add to the danger.”

On traffic cameras, television or from your window, streets may appear bare and wet but they may still be covered with ice. The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) continues to treat major arterial roads with salt brine and granular salt. Some secondary or neighborhood streets are very slick and changes in conditions between treated and untreated roadways can be very sudden. Four wheel drive is not a solution – vehicles need chains to have traction. Keeping the roads clear of traffic is extremely helpful for emergency vehicles.

Many sidewalks are icy. Pedestrians should use caution while walking and crossing streets. It is the responsibility of property owners to keep their sidewalks clear of ice to protect pedestrian safety. SDOT is dispatching 22 crews to activate the Pedestrian Safety Element of the Winter Response plan to clear and salt pedestrian landings, crossings, and intersections.

Seattle Public Utilities will not pick up garbage, recycling and yard waste today as planned, because the roads are too icy.

Weather permitting, garbage, recycling, and food/yard waste service will resume Friday, on a revised schedule — with customers scheduled for pickup today collected Friday, and Friday customers collected Saturday.

If your materials are not picked up this week, please put them out on your next regularly scheduled pickup day. Missed customers will be allowed to set out double their normal amount of garbage, recycling and yard waste at no additional charge.

All Seattle Public Library branches are closed on Thursday.

Woodland Park Zoo is closed again on Thursday.

Many King County offices are closed today, including District and Superior Court, Council offices, the Prosecutor’s Office and the Department of Assessments. For a full list of county closures, click here.

Someone created some great snow creatures in front of Santoro’s Books on Wednesday. (Thanks to LS for the pictures!)

Earlier: Wednesday was a very fun snow day of sledding and drinking hot chocolate. Unless, of course, you had to drive somewhere. The roads will likely be very icy on Thursday, so please drive carefully if you must go somewhere.

Here’s what’s on tap for Thursday:

Seattle Publish Schools are closed again.

Seattle Public Utilities will pick up Wednesday’s garbage, recycling and yard waste on Thursday, weather permitting. That means regular Thursday pickups will now happen on Friday, and Friday customers should set their refuse out on Saturday by 7 a.m.

If your materials are not picked up on the revised schedule, please put them out on your next regularly scheduled pickup day. Missed customers will be allowed to set out double their normal amount of garbage, recycling and yard waste at no additional charge.

Metro Transit will continue to operate on snow routes, with 27 routes canceled. Other routes may experience significant delays, so check Metro’s Snow & Ice page for updates before you head for the bus.

Greenwood Hardware was all out of sleds on Wednesday, but they’re getting more on Thursday.

We may be out of sleds for today, but we’ve seen a lot of creative solutions: garbage can lids, cardboard+rope+tarp… Send us pictures of your ad-hoc sled-like device and whichever we think is the most creative we’ll hold a sled for you from tomorrow’s truck!

Lexy sent us a photo of the hordes of sledders at Woodland Park on Wednesday.

Next door, at the Woodland Park Zoo, the animals frolicked in the snow.

Photo by Kirsten Pisto, Woodland Park Zoo.

As Christmas approaches with its mounds of wrapping paper, leftover food and dried out Christmas trees, Seattle Public Utilities wants to remind everyone just what can and can’t be recycled or composted.

Since recycling is free, you can put extra cans, bottles, paper and whatnot into a bin or box and set it next to your recycling cart on your regular collection day. Flatten empty cardboard boxes.

All recycling, garbage and compost needs to be put out by 7 a.m. on collection day.

Tips from SPU:

Common holiday items that go in recycling:

Clean pie tins, plastic deli/veggie trays and lids (wider than 3 inches), empty eggnog cartons, paper, plastic and metal cups, bottles, cans, jars, and tubs; catalogs, greeting cards, envelopes, cardboard, clean aluminum foil, gift wrap, plastic grocery bags (bundle and tie together) and glossy/shiny shopping bags.

All food scraps and yard clippings can go in your food and yard waste cart, including:

Figgy pudding, fruitcake, mistletoe, wreaths, bones, meat, cheese, seafood, fruit and vegetables. Paper bags and napkins can also be composted, as well as greasy cardboard pizza boxes.

There are several local Drop-off Recycling Locations for hard-to-recycle items, including:

• TVs, cell phones and other electronics, as well as Styrofoam, batteries and other items.
• To find a location near you, call (206) 684-3000 or go to www.seattle.gov/util and click on “How do I dispose of this?”

Holiday items that go in the garbage include:

• Ribbons and bows, burned out holiday lights, alkaline batteries and Styrofoam packaging.
• Fats, oil and grease should be placed in a lidded container and placed in the garbage.

Phinney Ridge and Greenwood are competing against other neighborhoods in Seattle to win $50,000 for a “Main Street Makeover” from Waste Management. The Think Green Recycling Challenge started in early October and runs through March. The goal is to increase recycling and composting and cut down on garbage disposal (as compared to last year’s data). Waste Management will post graphs of each neighborhood’s progress by the middle of November.

The neighborhood that reduces the most waste will win a $50,000 grant to spend on a community-wide project. Ideas for those projects could include bike racks, public recycling containers, hanging flower baskets and park benches.

Waste Management has partnered with a community organization in each neighborhood to get the word out and help the winning neighborhood decide on a project. In our case, it’s the Phinney Neighborhood Association.

We got a note from a homeowner in Greenwood who reports that someone dumped the contents of his garbage and recycling bins all over someone else’s driveway – two blocks away – but left the cans at the original house. He reported it to Seattle Public Utilities, which picks up garbage and recycling, as well as the Seattle Police Department’s North Precinct.

My wife received a phone call from an angry woman, saying that our garbage and recycling was dumped all over her driveway. We put out our garbage and recycling on Tuesday night just like everyone else, so we aren’t sure how it got all over her driveway. We have reported the incident with seattle public utilities, and they mentioned they would send out an inspector. Wondering if this has happened to anyone else recently? This happened near 8500 block (of Phinney Avenue North).

To the woman: we are very sorry that you had to deal with this. Again, we have reported the incident with seattle public utilities. If there’s anything you need from us, you have our phone number.

Waste Management, one of two companies that contract with the City of Seattle to haul away garbage, recycling, and yard waste, is challenging neighborhoods to reduce trash and increase recycling during a six-month period. And the winner gets a chunk of cash.

Starting at the end of September and running through March, Waste Management’s Neighborhood Rewards Programs will measure garbage, recycling and yard waste, and compare it to data for the same time period last year. The neighborhood that can recycle and compost the most, and throw out the least garbage, will win a $50,000 grant for a community project.

While the contest is strictly for residential and not commercial, Kristin Kinder, outreach coordinator for Waste Management, said businesses are encouraged to promote the contest as a way for the whole neighborhood to win.

“It’s a cool combination between single-family residential and commercial entities working together and both reaping the benefits,” Kinder told last week’s Greenwood Community Council meeting.

A number of Phinney Ridge and Greenwood organizations will collaborate on helping our neighborhood decide what to do with the grant money if we win the contest, including the Greenwood-Phinney Chamber of Commerce, Phinney Neighborhood Center, Sustainable Greenwood-Phinney, Northwest District Council, Greenwood Community Council, and Phinney Ridge Community Council.

“The neighborhood that wins will be granted $50,000 for a ‘shovel ready’ plan. So they don’t want us to spend a lot of time and money figuring it out. It should be ready to go,” Phinney Neighborhood Association Administrative Assistant Marie Bolla said.

“We want to protect our resources and protect the resources of this area for our children and our friends and family and for our community,” Bolla added, “and one way to do that is to reduce waste, and recycle what we can.”

Final details of the contest are still being worked out, so stay tuned for more details, and the official start date in September.

GAIN (Greenwood Aurora Involved Neighbors) is hosting another neighborhood cleanup at 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 5.

This time we are joining forces with our neighbors from the GAIN groups north of us, so let’s show them a good turnout. It will be an all-GAIN trash spectacular! Think of it as getting exercise, meeting your neighbors, and conveniently making your own streets cleaner in the process. In January we had a great turnout at Greenwood Christian Church, with 39 people collecting 30 bags of garbage and 11 bags of yard waste!!!

The tentative plan is to have two starting off points: A south-end start location will be at Bethel Presbyterian Church, 11002 Greenwood Ave N (110th and Greenwood). A north-end start location will be the 128th Street Interurban trailhead (Fremont Ave and 128th). Both locations will feature a supply of pre-pickin-up-trash fuel of coffee and muffins, and maybe even something more sugary!

Seattle Public Utilities will pick up garbage, recycling, and food and yard waste like normal on Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday.

The city’s North Recycling and Disposal Station in Fremont/Wallingford will be open normal business hours, from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Customers can report a missed collection after 5 p.m. on the day it was missed by calling (206) 684-3000 or by filling out the online Missed Collection form.

SPU also will pick up and recycle TVs, computers and other electronic items for a $20 fee. Call (206) 684-3000 to request an electronics collection. Apartment residents should contact their building manager to arrange for electronics collection.

You can also drop off your old computer and TV for free at a designated E-Cycle location.

You’ve got two more days to submit your trash to the Second Use annual Salvage Art & Design Contests. Submissions are due Friday. Judging for the contests is during Second Use’s annual Fall Festival from 11 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 25. The festival has live music, free food, horse rides, family games for the whole family, and a store-wide sale.

Join artists and salvage enthusiasts from all over the Puget Sound region who have pieced together old doors, toilets, hardware bits, and other found treasures in order to challenge visitors, customers, and neighbors to re-evaluate art, waste, and consumption in construction projects and our everyday lives.

This year, the Salvage Art Show will host two separate contests: Salvage Design and The Art of Salvage. The “Salvage Design” contest provides an opportunity for designers and homeowners alike to show off images from a recent construction, building, or remodeling project that used salvage materials: a home, business, outbuilding, or any design project. “The Art of Salvage” hosts original artwork, such as painting, sculpture, mixed media, and portable functional objects that have been created using salvage materials.

For more information, email Carrie Ferrence at Second Use Building Materials, or call 206-763-6929.

Seattle Public Utilities is reminding folks that garbage, recycling and yard waste collections are on a normal schedule next week, despite the Memorial Day holiday. So if Monday is your collection day, put out everything by 7 a.m. like usual.

And the North Recycling and Disposal Station in Fremont/Wallingford will be open during regular business hours, 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Monday, May 31.

Since last week’s strike by union workers at Waste Management disrupted normal garbage, yard waste and recycling pickup, Seattle Public Utilities is telling affected customers they can put out twice their usual amount this week.

Customers whose collections were missed due to the strike on Wednesday and Thursday may set out up to twice their garbage, yard waste and recycling on their next regular collection day, at no additional cost.

SPU will provide updates as needed. Customers with solid waste service problems may call the Call Center at (206) 684-3000.

Garbage trucks were seen in the neighborhood early this morning, but Waste Management workers went on strike mid-morning, according to The Seattle Times.

Union garbage haulers went out on strike at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, culminating a three-week standoff with their employer, Waste Management, which provides collection services to about 1 million customers in King and Snohomish Counties.

Members of Teamsters Local 174 were told to return their trucks to their bases and set up picket lines outside Waste Management facilities, said spokesman Michael Gonzales.

“We’re telling our members to turn their trucks back,” Gonzales said.

Gonzales said the company has violated federal labor law, including bargaining in bad faith, coercing employees, threatening to retaliate against workers and unilaterally changing working conditions. The Teamsters have been working without a contract since April 1.

Read the full Times story here.

Waste Management’s contract covers the northwest and south sections of Seattle.

Seattle Public Utilities just issued this press release:

Those customers whose collections are missed today are asked to put all of their garbage and yard waste out next week on their regular collection day.

The City’s recycling services are covered by a different contract, and should not be affected by the strike. All customers are asked to keep their recycling out.

Approximately 18,000 residential customers could be affected by the strike action today in the following approximate areas:

- N. 105th St to N. 85th St, W. of SR-99

Delridge Way SW to Beacon Ave. S, from S. Royal Brougham to SW Roxbury St.

View a detailed map of the affected area.