It is a sad fact of life in this neighborhood that if you spend any time in parks or public spaces, you are likely to find used needles.
The Wallingford Community Council has set up a series of trainings to teach the community about how to clean up discarded needles, human waste, and other hazardous trash left in parks or other public spaces.
The trainings will be conducted by a member of Seattle Public Utilities, and will cover how to safely clean up sharps and other hazardous waste (safe for you and safe for garbage collectors).
Sharps (needles) Pick-up Training Dates:
- Wednesday, September 26th, 11:15-11:45 a.m. at the Boys & Girls Club on 45th
- Tuesday, October 2nd, 6:00-6:30 p.m. Library, B.F. Day Elementary (childcare provided)
If you can’t make one of the sessions, go to the Seattle Public Utilities website for more information about reporting and disposing of hazardous waste.
If you find a syringe on public property (sidewalks, parking strips, streets, other public rights-of-way, or on the grounds of city facilities) report it to:
- Seattle Public Utilities Illegal Dumping Hotline:
- Call (206) 684-7587, or
- Report illegal dumping online
- Find it, Fix it smart phone app
“It is a sad fact of life in this neighborhood that if you spend any time in parks or public spaces, you are likely to find used needles”
its only been a “fact” since the city decided to let junkies and vagrants hold sway over any sort of expectation of law and order or consequence of action. heroin is still illegal, right?
ridiculous.
also, no thanks – i’m not touching even one single festering junkie needle.
This has been a “fact” in this city for some time. You can go back and read the news 20 years ago.
The change is more with the fact that the city was much cheaper 20 years ago and many drug users still had homes.
Many rural communities have severe drug problems but little homeless problems, because housing is cheap. They don’t have drug usage in the park issue because of that. They probably don’t have parks anyway.
It is a shame that this is now normalized. I wish the city could focus on expanding treatment services and not on enabling and accepting this as the new normal.