Seattle City Council unanimously adopted a zero waste strategy July 16 that will require residents to recycle food scraps in 2009 and will cap the amount of waste the city can send to the landfill.

The plan will increase recycling, reduce trash and update Seattle´s transfer stations while avoiding building a third planned transfer station in the Georgetown neighborhood. It calls for capping the amount of waste Seattle will send to landfills at 440,000 tons per year, the amount the city disposed of in 2006.

The City Council also has charged Seattle Public Utilities to begin looking for recommendations on whether to ban or discourage through taxation noncompostable plastic shopping bags and polystyrene foam food containers. The city will implement a new program to provide all single-family homes with food waste pickup service for composting.

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