The city has hauled residential yard waste exclusively to its trash incinerator almost since the beginning of the new trash system but still charges customers for separate green waste service, officials confirmed Tuesday.
Trash operators said they decided in January to take all yard waste to the Covanta Energy incinerator plant like regular garbage because the city's mulching plant could not remove the plastic bags in which residents are asked to place the material.
The city has continued requiring residents to affix those bags with a 50-cent "green waste" sticker and charges every trash customer a $1.09 monthly green waste fee, saying it still provides the service of collecting an unwanted material.
SHOCKED
Randy Sullivan: About the charges, he said. "I guess the answer would be somebody screwed up..."
Randy Sullivan, the recently appointed chairman of the city's trash board, said city staff members told the board only recently that no green waste was going to the mulching site and that he would agree with residents who wonder why they still pay for the service.
The trash board plans to discuss the green waste program next week.
"I was shocked," Sullivan said. "I guess the answer to (why residents still pay for the service) would be somebody screwed up and it's an operational issue."
The board, formally known as the Tulsa Authority for the Recovery of Energy, contracted with independent hauler NeWSolutions for curbside trash and recycling pickup beginning Oct. 1, but opted to use city crews for yard waste because it had little idea how much Tulsans would discard.
The plan was to gather a year of data using in-house crews and then explore whether the city could operate a cheaper green waste program or begin selling mulch.
The city allows residents to place "incidental" yard waste in trash carts, but officials have said they must place excess yard waste on curbs in clear bags or bundles so that crews know the material should go to the green waste plant, where it would be mulched and reused.
At least, that was the original plan, Interim Solid Waste Director Roy Teeters said.
Although several reputable companies initially told the city that it could separate yard waste from the bags by using a "trommel screen" to extract materials of different sizes, the screen did not do so efficiently, Teeters said.
Crews at the green waste plant worked for three months to fix the problem before city staff decided to divert the material to Covanta, which burns a portion of the city's garbage stream to produce electricity, he said.
Most yard waste was going to the trash incinerator during those three months, he added.
"The city's main goal for years has been to try to divert or limit the amount of green waste going to the landfill, and we're still accomplishing that," he said. "Taking the green waste to the trash-to-energy plant is just another form of recycling. Instead of turning it into product, they're turning it into energy."
City spokeswoman Liz Hunt said the city has not intentionally misled residents and that officials are simply trying to find the best way to manage green waste.
Many cities do not even offer green waste pickup, she said.
"There is an active and ongoing concerted effort on behalf of TARE to continue to find effective and sustainable opportunities to dispose of green waste that are both financially and environmentally sustainable," she said.
"Because this is a brand new system from the ground up, there are things that arise, and one of the issues that arose was" the green waste plant's equipment problem.
Although regular green waste collection is suspended until after a citywide cleanup of debris from last month's windstorm, residents will be required to continue using the 50-cent green waste stickers once the service resumes, as the city must still try to recoup the cost of using its own crews, she said.
The trash board has spent $1,427,681 on green waste service in the last nine months, and the program is a major cause of recent projections that the board's savings of $6.28 million will run dry in four years.
Trash operators say that only about 3 percent of Tulsa's 116,500 trash customers are using the service - probably, they speculate, because residents are opting to place yard waste in trash carts to avoid buying stickers.
As a result, the city has sold only $82,250 worth of green waste stickers since January, when a three-month free collection period ended. It had projected selling $1 million a year.
Sullivan, who took over for Cheryl Cohenour as the trash board's chairman last week, has called a special meeting for next week to discuss previous reports by trash operators that underwhelming collections may force the city to trim its 10-crew green waste collection fleet or possibly reconsider the way it collects green waste altogether.
"As chairman of the TARE board, we just need to look at what are the problems of the system, what are the benefits to the environment of having a green waste system and how much are the citizens of Tulsa willing to pay," Sullivan said.
The green waste plant at 10401 E. 56th St. North has always mulched yard waste left there by residents, officials say.
That material is used at parks, supplied to farmers, given away to residents and sent to Covanta Energy in the form of wood chips, which dry out its burn mixture.
Cleanup curtails weekly green waste program
The city's weekly green waste program remains suspended until the end of a monthlong citywide cleanup following last month's hurricane-force windstorm, but limited green waste collection has resumed, the city announced Tuesday.
Green waste crews over the next several days will pick up regular bagged green waste for Tulsa residents who are scheduled for Tuesday trash collection, the city said.
No green waste stickers or clear bags are required, and tree limbs cut in four-foot segments and bundled on curbs will be collected.
However, large debris will be left for storm cleanup crews, who continue working in from the perimeter of the city.
Those crews will begin working on Saturday in an effort to speed up the operation, the city said. The operation was limited to weekdays to avoid overtime costs during its first week.
Residents are asked to drag tree debris to the curb and cut them in four-foot segments, if possible. The debris must be accessible to collection crews - unblocked by parked vehicles or mailboxes.
When green waste pickup for residents with Tuesday trash service is complete, the city will announce that crews will move to residents with Wednesday and then Thursday collection.
Regular weekly green waste collection - when 50-cent green waste stickers will be required - is tentatively planned for Aug. 19.
Zack Stoycoff 918-581-8486
zack.stoycoff@tulsaworld.com
Local
Her biological father from Oklahoma and her adoptive parents from South Carolina spent several hours Monday and Tuesday on the sixth floor of the state's Kerr office building, where the Court of Civil Appeals meets in Tulsa.
A cause of the fire is under investigation.
