In brief: Spokane County beats state recycling rate

Spokane County recycled more than half of its waste in 2013, beating a statewide recycling rate of 49 percent, according to data released Monday by the Department of Ecology.

The county’s 54 percent recycling rate was about a 1 percent drop from 2012, but remained higher than previous years. Ken Gimpel, the city’s assistant utilities director, said recycling rates have gone up since the city began taking a larger variety of recyclables in late 2012.

Gimpel said the city’s switch to single-stream recycling at the end of 2013 would probably increase residential recycling, but said it’s unlikely to significantly affect the city’s recycling rate because residential customers are a small percentage of the overall waste stream.

Washington continues to have a significantly higher recycling rate than the 2012 national average of 34.5 percent.

Rachel Alexander

UI herbarium creates app for wildflowers

The University of Idaho’s Stillinger Herbarium helped create an app with more than 800 Idaho wildflower species.

The app is available for $7.99 on Apple, Google and Amazon app stores. The University of Washington and Idaho State University were also partners in the project.

“Idaho Wildflowers” provides access to information on the breadth of Idaho’s flowers all in one place for the first time, said Dave Tank, a UI associate professor of biology and director of the Stillinger Herbarium. From wet forests to desert, the state’s landscape is so diverse that no single reference book has all the information contained in the app, he said.

Revenue generated by the app will support wildflower-collecting expeditions, plant conservation and botanical exploration in the Northwest.

Becky Kramer

Housing authority will accept pre-applications

Starting Jan. 26, the Spokane Housing Authority will accept online pre-applications for a lottery to get on a waiting list for housing choice vouchers.

Online pre-applications will be accepted beginning at 10 a.m. on Jan. 26, and will close at 3 p.m. on Jan. 30.

Housing choice vouchers are part of a federal program that allows very-low-income families and disabled or elderly individuals to rent apartments in the private market.

All applicants must be 18 years of age or older and only one pre-application per household will be accepted.

There is no charge for the voucher application process.

Help with online pre-applications is available at the Spokane Housing Authority during regular office hours.

For more information, visit www.spokanehousing.org.

Jaclyn Archer