The City of Renton received two grants from King County to help fund programs that teach about hazardous cleaning supplies and new laws on food waste disposal.

The Local Hazardous Waste Management grant is for $25,103.51 and is funded by King County’s hazardous waste program, which is supported with hazardous waste fees on garbage.

Renton Solid Waste Program Manager Meara Heubach said most of the money for this grant is going toward the safer cleaning program, a program to teach people about the potential dangers of cleaning supplies.

“It’s really to help residents reduce their exposure to toxic and hazardous cleaning products and to teach them about safer alternatives to use in their homes,” Heubach said.

Heubach said they are building off of work they did last year when they had three workshops in different Renton Housing Authority multi-family homes using the 2024 grant.

“There are some lookalike cleaners, like Pine Sol can look like apple juice to kids,” Heubach said. “If you are a kid, you don’t realize that it’s Clorox instead of something else. These in-person workshops went over some of those tricky items as well as what these warning words are on products.”

Heubach said words like “danger” and “warning” on products are each tied to a specific risk level and it is important to educate residents about which of those phrasings are the most dangerous.

Heubach said many of the people who attended those workshops last year found the information helpful and wanted more workshops to help keep their kids and pets safe.

“We plan on extending that through this year with doing more in-person workshops at multi-family properties, as well as doing standalone outreach events like having a booth at the Renton Farmers Market teaching about some of these common, tricky, hazardous cleaning products,” Heubach said.

Food waste

The Waste Reduction and Recycling grant is for $90,594 and from King County. Heubach said the city regularly receives this grant.

Heubach said they want to use the grant on several projects. The biggest project is to help business and commercial customers reduce their waste by recycling more and starting food waste collection. Heubach said there is a relatively new set of laws passed by the state called the Organics Management Laws that will require businesses to separate food from their garbage by 2030. She said the laws are being phased in now.

“Some customers like grocery stores or buffets that produce a lot of food waste now need to be in compliance earlier,” Heubach said. “We are using this grant to help businesses get there.”

Heubach said they are teaching businesses about the laws and analyzing their waste levels to recommend better waste management practices to meet the new laws. She said the grant can also help provide businesses with multilingual signs, particularly in Spanish and Vietnamese, to help people properly separate their trash.

Heubach said they can also provide the bins to help businesses start collecting recyclables and food separately. She said this will cut down the businesses’ costs because recycling services are free and food collection is cheaper than normal trash collection.

“We also have dollies with wheels. We know sometimes in food prep you move containers around, depending on where you’re prepping food,” Heubach said. “A part of the grant money is providing those containers at no cost, including compostable bag liners just to make it easier for customers to set up that service.”

Heubach said when food breaks down at the landfill, it produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

“When we separate the food waste and have it turned into compost instead, it doesn’t produce methane and we can use the product with compost,” Meubach said. “When it goes to a landfill, it’s just going to be locked up forever.”

Another big project the grant has been helping is the recycling collection events in May, June and September at Renton Technical College. Heubach said anyone living in King County can bring items like scrap metal, packing foam, or tires for them to collect. Heubach said this year they are partnering with a nonprofit, Seattle Recreative, to collect art supplies to be repurposed.

The grant will also help fund a Bring Your Own Cup campaign to encourage coffee shops and customers to bring their own cups to cut down on disposable coffee cups, which is allowed at all cafes.

“Sometimes cafes offer a discount when you bring your own cup or use one of their reusable ones,” Heubach said. “There really is a lot of litter on the streets that comes from those single-use coffee cups.”

The remaining funds will go toward other waste prevention efforts in the city, such as food waste prevention week in April and compostable bags for bins on the city’s property.

Heubach said customers can contact her at mheubach@rentonwa.gov if they want any of the food waste supplies brought to their business or the safer cleaning program brought to their apartment or condo building.