Originally Posted by SeattleTimes

A good answer may not always be the best answer. In an item in last Monday's column, state Department of Licensing spokesman Brad Benfield answered a reader's inquiry about discarding old vehicle-license plates by saying old plates can simply be tossed in the trash without worry or legal liability because once new license plates are assigned to a vehicle, state records are changed and the old plates become obsolete.

Maybe so. But readers responded during the week with some observations:

• One reader said she tossed her old plates into the garbage. Three months later, she received a parking ticket in the mail. "Sure, it was easy enough to remedy the situation [with a phone call]," she said, "but I was advised, after the fact, that I should have destroyed the plates before disposing of them."

• A caller said he was advised two weeks ago by a contracted licensing agency to bend his old plates in half before tossing them in a recycling bin.

• Cheryl Fontaine of Lake Stevens said she mailed her old plates to the governor with a letter expressing her "extreme displeasure" at having to replace perfectly good plates. "Not only is this ... a financial hardship on me," she said, "it dumps more garbage in landfills that does not need to be there."

So, here's the latest word: King County's Solid Waste Division encourages recycling of anything that can be recycled, including aluminum, says division spokeswoman Sharon Aller. But the state Department of Licensing has regulations about what to do with old license plates. They can be mailed to the department in Olympia, or dropped off at any local vehicle-licensing office to be recycled.

It is not necessary to bend them before you throw them away, says department spokeswoman Selena Davis. But, she noted, old plates should first be invalidated, if you're going to toss them yourself, by removing the month and year tabs.