Now when you stop by Caffé Vita for your daily cup of coffee, you can help save an animal’s life. Not too shabby.

For every bag of Zoo Special Reserve purchased at Caffé Vita, $1 will be donated to Woodland Park Zoo. The farmers who grow this coffee promote biodiversity by setting aside over forty percent of their land as a nature reserve, which protects the habitats of native tropical animals and birds such as gray foxes, armadillos, anteaters, parrots and butterflies. The Zoo Special Reserve coffee beans were sustainably farmed using innovative systems of composting, recycling and water conservation under the belief that healthy, organic soil and diverse shade cover produces superior coffee.

Zoo Special Reserve is sold in 12-ounce bags of whole beans for $13.95 at all six Caffé Vita locations in Seattle, though the easiest one for you to get to would be the Queen Anne location at 813 5th Avenue North.

Caffé Vita will continue to work with Woodland Park Zoo this summer when they travel to Papua New Guinea to help improve community livelihoods while protecting biodiversity and the habitat of the endangered Matschie’s tree kangaroo.

Tuesday South, the trash collection area encompassing the western half of Queen Anne and the top of Magnolia, is still trailing the Ravenna trash collection area of Tuesday North in the Neighborhood Waste Reduction Rewards contest.

CleanScapes’ city-wide neighborhood competition measures the difference in tons of garbage, yard waste and recycling from the previous year for the grand prize of $50,000 towards a community improvement project. The 2010/2011 Neighborhood Waste Reduction Rewards program runs until September 30.

The difference between Tuesday South’s and Tuesday North’s change in waste reduction, 0.7 percent, is the same small amount reported last February despite the collection of more than a ton of waste in each area since.

From the CleanScapes website:

Winning is easy: stop waste before it happens. Compost at home. Use a worm bin. Grasscycle. Use refillable water bottles and coffee mugs. Replace paper towels and napkins with cloth kitchen towels and washable napkins. Bring your own bag. Use Tupperware. Reuse. Repair. Buy in bulk. Buy local. Buy second-hand. Share. Trade. Swap. Rent. Donate or sell unwanted items. Print double-sided. Stop junk mail and phonebooks… you get the idea!

The Washington Department of Ecology will be awarding 45 public and private schools across the state with cash for reducing waste and promoting sustainability through ongoing waste reduction efforts, environmental programming, and innovative curriculum.

Each of the winning schools will be receiving awards ranging from $150 to $3,150 (for a total of $28,975) from one of three categories: The Seed Award, which assists schools with initial start-up costs for the promotion of waste reduction, recycling and sustainability within the school and in the greater community; The Sustainable School Program Award, which recognizes current and/or ongoing programs that focus on recycling, sustainability and waste reduction; and the Creative Environmental Curriculum Award, which recognizes schools with original curricula that engages students and staff in issues of waste reduction, recycling and sustainability.

The annual Terry Husseman School Award winners this year include Queen Anne’s own St. Anne School, which will receive a $1,500 “seed award” for the implementation of waste reduction efforts through recycling and composting, and will specifically fund composting equipment.

“Engaging the next generation to make sustainable choices is key to maintaining a healthy future environment. And schools are natural places for learning,” said Laurie Davies, manager of Ecology’s Waste 2 Resources Program, in a press release this morning. “The schools do great work with even small amounts of funds that Ecology awards by providing innovative environmental education.”

Check out the other award winning schools here (.pdf).

Fast food restaurants on Queen Anne and all across Seattle will have to make a big change starting July 1. That’s when an ordinance will require all single-use packaging and food ware to be compostable or recyclable. Restaurants and food service businesses will also have to put up new bins for customers to sort their trash.

Today, Seattle Public Utilities invited Queen Anne View to Safeco Field for a look at how the Seattle Mariners are already implementing the program. All food vendors at the stadium have switched to compostable products and bins have been set up on all levels so fans can sort the trash after they’ve finished eating. Safeco hopes to have a recycling rate of over 70 percent.

“Our beer cup looks like plastic but it’s made of corn. Our knives, forks and spoons look like plastic but they’re also made of corn. They are heat sensitive, so if you have a spoon in a hot food item, it will bend. That’s something fans will have to get used to,” said Scott Jenkins with the Mariners.

Restaurants will face added costs from the new ordinance, and some have pushed back against Seattle Public Utilities. The Washington Restaurant Association says most restaurants in Seattle are interested in using more sustainable practices, but they have questions about cost and customer safety. SPU says many businesses, like Taco Del Mar which made the switch the eco-friendly ware back in 2008, are more than willing to make the change.

“The restaurants are responding really well,” said Dick Lilly from SPU. “It’s a big change so it’s going to take some working out. The products are getting better and less expensive.”

The city’s new composting requirements follow a ban on styrofoam last year. You can read more about the program here.

You might not be ready to part with your Christmas tree yet, but whenever you plan to bring the holidays to a close, remember you may be able to recycle your tree rather than toss it (and help Queen Anne win $50,000 for reducing our waste). If you subscribe to curbside food and yard waste collection, you can put your tree out on the regular collection day at no extra charge until Sunday, January 10. Trees left out for collection should be cut into sections of up to six feet, with branches trimmed to four feet or less and bundled with string or twine so that they fit into the trucks.

Team up with your neighbors to reduce waste, and you could win $50,000 toward a community improvement project in your neighborhood. CleanScapes and Seattle Public Utilities are challenging neighborhoods to compete in a season-long competition to reduce, reuse and compost, to see who can win the $50k prize.

The neighborhood collection area with the largest percentage decrease of tons between Fall 2009 and Spring 2010 wins and the Community Council (in our case, the Queen Anne Community Council) for the winning area will choose community improvement project from a list of options – including pocket parks, public benches and neighborhood entrance landscaping – to be installed and maintained by CleanScapes, the city’s contracted garbage and recycling service. Get the details here (.pdf).

And in the spirit of waste reduction, there will also be a Food + Compostables event tomorrow, Tuesday, November 17 at Center House in Seattle Center. From 8:30 a.m. to noon there will be a vendor fair with exhibitor booths for compostable products, recycling collection bin manufacturers, local distributors and retailers, and panels featuring food service and property manager industry representatives. Get more information on the workshops and panels here (.pdf).

Happy composting!

Three Queen Anne quick-serve restaurants are participating in Seattle Public Utilities’ Green Eats Week program, a week-long promotion through their food and compost program that highlights several Seattle-area eateries that are implementing customer collection of leftover and compostable and recyclable ware and packaging. “It’s not garbage anymore,” the organizers said in a press release this week.

The program kicked off this past Wednesday, October 21 when a group of hungry middle schoolers were served a fully green seven-course meal from the participating restaurants at the Pier 54 Ivar’s. Everything on the table, from the table cloths to cupcake wrapper was fully compostable, recyclable or re-useable.

In Queen Anne, Caffe Vita, Macrina and Pagliacci Pizza will be offering at least one menu item using fully compostable service ware for the rest of the week-long promotion. Diners who purchase one of the Green  Eats Week items though Wednesday, October 28 will receive a coupon for Cedar Grove Composting.

To download a map of participating restaurants all over Seattle, click here (.pdf). For more information on the program and why it’s important, check out the Green Eats Week website.

 Queen Anne residents will see changes to home garbage and recycling services, including a new pick up day and increased charges, starting Monday (3/30).  Information was mailed last week and the city called most homes to let them know about their new pick up day.  If you need more information click here or call (206) 684-3000.

Households will see an increase in monthly costs for garbage pick up.  for example, a house with a 32-gallon can will now pay $22.30 per month for garbage service compared to $17.65 last year

The new recycling changes include:  
• Weekly food and yard waste collection for all single-family households.
• All food scraps can go in your food and yard waste cart, including meat, fish and dairy.
• More food and yard waste cart sizes.
• More paper, plastic and metal items can be recycled, including cups, deli trays, aluminum foil, and plastic plant pots.
• Glass bottles and jars go in your recycling cart – no more separating.
• Electronics, used motor oil, and bulky items can be collected through special services.

The goal is to divert 60 percent of all generated waste in the city to recycling or composting by 2012.