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U.S. city of Seattle is introducing system to fine people who waste food. The city, in USA's northwest, will begin issuing warnings on January 1st and then start fining people six months later on July the 1st. People will get $1 fine if more than 10 per cent of their garbage is food. Businesses will get $50 fine. City officials want to reduce amount of food that people and businesses waste. Americans waste around 40 per cent of food they buy. The city hopes its new fines will bring this figure down. Seattle aims to increase the amount of waste it recycles from current level of 56 per cent to 60 per cent. It has also become second U.S. city to make composting compulsory.

Seattle Public Utilities department said new garbage disposal system should make people more aware that recycling is important. City official Tim Croll told 'Seattle Times' newspaper that programme would not make any money. He said: "The point isn't to raise revenue. We care more about reminding people to separate their materials." He added that he thinks fines system will be success and said he didn't expect to collect lot of money in fines. It will be up to garbage collectors to decide if house or business gets fine. The collectors will look inside garbage bins to see how much food waste they contain. They can then add $1 or $50 to next garbage bill.