After five weeks of sifting through garbage, the challenge is over. The six East Renton Plateau families are done lugging their trash bags to a scale each week. The final numbers have been crunched, and a winner has been determined.
And that winner isn’t the early favorite. Five weeks ago, the name on everyone’s lips was Baiba. But after Thursday’s final weigh-in, that name had become Rebecca. And James, Emma, 8, and Owen, 5. Those, plus dog Sophie, are the members of the Gallagher family. And with an 82-percent garbage reduction over the past five weeks, the Gallaghers are the winners of the Renton Neighborhood Challenge, part of King County’s campaign called “Recycle More. It’s Easy To Do.” The contest was a partnership between King County, Renton and Waste Management.
Although her family wasn’t the initial predicted winner, Rebecca wasn’t shocked at their first-place finish.
“I wasn’t surprised to win,” she says. “I was really hoping to win. But I was really surprised to see the percentage. That was shocking.”
She also never expected to hit two pounds. The Gallaghers started with 16.8 pounds at the May 29 weigh-in. That number immediately plummeted — to just 2.7 pounds at the June 5 weigh-in.
The Gallaghers’ success is in the food scraps. Each of the six families was allowed to dispose of their food scraps and food-soiled papers in their yard waste bin. This service is available in much of King County, but not yet in the competitors’ East Renton Plateau neighborhood. An exception was made for the challenge.
“We always recycled paper, plastic, whatever, but never food scraps,” Rebecca says.
The Gallaghers weren’t the only winners in the Renton Neighborhood Challenge. With a 63-percent garbage reduction, the early favorites — the Baiba-led Rubinos — finished second. At Thursday’s weigh-in, Tom Watson called the Rubinos “the family with the most to lose.” Watson is project manager for King County’s Recycling and Environmental Services.
The Rubinos started with a whopping 62.6 pounds of weekly trash. They ended with a mere 15.4 pounds. Although she initially expected to win, Baiba sensed the changing tide later in the challenge.
“I thought it would be Rebecca,” she said Thursday. “Joey was home all last week, so I was cooking more.”
She earlier named her husband Joe, or Joey, as one of the challenge’s challenges. Baiba and Joe have two children: Anna, 3, and Joey, eight months.
The Gessells finished third. The family, Carrie and Glenn and children Andrew, 10, Brittany, 8, and Cameron, 1, 1/2, reduced their garbage by 47 percent, losing 10.4 pounds along the way.
The Kawamotos were also honored Thursday, as the family with the lowest starting trash weight. Karen and Stan and children Matt, 19, Nick, 16 and two dogs Ollie and Chloe, started with just 7.4 pounds. Over the five weeks, their trash decreased to 4.6 pounds, losing 2.8 pounds.
The five weeks of trash from the six families lost a combined 91 pounds, or 19 bags of trash. These symbolic bags were displayed in the East Renton Plateau neighborhood Thursday, along with the full recycling bins of many of the families.
Watson also dumped out a couple of the families’ garbage bags from the final week.
“I don’t see any recyclables in there at all now – very impressive,” he said.
Watson said he was impressed with each family’s achievements.
“I was a little surprised,” he said. “They reduced even more than I suspected. Under five pounds — that’s better than my family.”
And they had fun along the way.
“It was a good time,” competitor Brenda Collons said. “We got to talk about trash, in the true sense of the word.”
For their first-place finish, the Gallaghers win a home recycling makeover by a King County garbologist and a$100 IKEA gift certificate.
Rebecca plans to buy some sort of organizational bins with the gift certificate. Maybe recycling bins.
“I’ll try to put my purchase toward something honorable,” she says.
And she and the rest of her family plan to stick with their new recycling regime. Even the food scraps, once the program becomes available in their neighborhood.
“As soon as we get it implemented, we’ll go right back to it,” she says. “We’ll continue our habits.”
For more information
Much of what ends up in landfills is recyclable. To find out more about recycling in Renton, visit http://rentonwa.gov/living/ and click on the Living and Environment tabs. In King County, visit www.metrokc.gov/recyclemore. For more about recycling food scraps and soiled paper, visit www.recyclefood.com.
