Snowpocalypse leaves some residents hauling their own trash

As garbage and recycling have piled up in the snow-slammed Seattle area, some cities are encouraging people to haul away their own trash.

Some neighborhoods have gone two weeks without a visit from garbage or recycling trucks.

More than 100 Shoreline residents hauled their bags of trash on Tuesday to snowy Hamlin Park, where the city had stationed a garbage truck for the day.

Garbage has been the biggest inconvenience of the snowpocalypse for Irina Koltman of Shoreline. "It's big trouble because collecting a lot of garbage and no place to store it,” she said.

She had driven down the deeply snow-rutted road into the park to be rid of her trash. She said she was grateful for the service.

Mike Jefferson with Recology Cleanscapes helped the steady stream of drivers offload their trash.

“They've been happy, really happy," he said. "Some of them had two weeks' worth built up."

Jefferson said his company was doing similar drop-off locations in Bothell, Burien, Issaquah and SeaTac.

While many of the region's main streets were clear, many residential streets — where garbage trucks need to go —remained a slushy mess on Tuesday.

“You figure you got a 50,000-pound truck. The roads are slushy, if you get caught in a rut, it could cause damage,” Jefferson said. "Safety's our number-one concern."

Seattle Public Utilities aimed to resume garbage collection on Wednesday by removing trash scheduled to have been picked up on Monday and Tuesday. But by Wednesday evening, the utility said its trucks had been unable to get to all Monday and Tuesday areas, "even with chains and extra crews," and those customers would have to wait until next week.

Seattle officials asked residents to help by shoveling away snow and slush so waste collectors can get to their bins more easily.

Seattle is also letting residential customers who've been waiting more than a week for waste collection drop off their garbage, recycling or compostables for free at transfer stations Wednesday through Saturday.