Tulsa residents have been putting their yard waste in special bags with 50-cent stickers so that they will be taken to the city's green-waste disposal site for mulching, but they have been put in the incinerator with other trash, it was revealed last week. Tulsa World file
The city’s trash board pledged Tuesday to find a way to overhaul its curbside yard waste system and restore confidence in collection procedures after the revelation that yard waste has been burned like regular garbage almost since the system’s inception.
“I think the public was thinking that we were going to solve this problem today, and ... what we’re finding is we really can’t,” board member Priscilla Harris said. “But we at least recognize that there is a problem, and we’re going to resolve it.”
The Tulsa World reported last week that yard waste picked up at residents’ curbs has been taken to the city’s trash incinerator since at least January because equipment at its mulching plant could not remove the plastic bags in which residents are asked to place the material.
The city has still required residents to affix those bags with a 50-cent “green waste” sticker and charges trash customers a $1.09 monthly green waste fee.
Trash board members urged residents during a special yard waste discussion Tuesday to be patient as they begin what they said could be a long process of fixing the system.
The board, formally known as the Tulsa Authority for the Recovery of Energy, will consider proposals by Mayor Dewey Bartlett and city staff to outsource yard waste collection to a contracted hauler, which would still take waste to the incinerator, or to give residents yard waste carts and allow city crews to take the materials to the mulching plant.
The board planned the discussion after staff reported last month that yard waste collections have come far short of projections.
“This is not the hot seat I was expecting,” said Gary Betow, a recently-appointed board member whose first meeting was Tuesday. “The whole city’s watching this.
“What are we going to do to — I don’t know — restore confidence? Maybe that’s outside of what we can do, but I think we need to be prepared to step up.”
The trash board wanted to separate yard waste from garbage and recyclables when its new curbside program began Oct. 1 because it hoped to reuse the material as mulch that could be given away or eventually sold.
Yard waste was previously taken to the trash incinerator — a practice that officials at the time said was environmentally undesirable.
The board contracted with hauler NeWSolutions for most collection duties but used its own crews for yard waste because it had little idea how much Tulsans would discard — and thus, no way to solicit bids for the service.
The question now is whether the trash board still wants to keep yard waste separate from regular trash, Chairman Randy Sullivan said.
Bartlett proposes outsourcing the service, shutting down the city’s separate program and allowing the trash board to sell or repurpose its 10 yard waste trucks. Yard waste would go to the trash incinerator without the cost of extra trucks, he told the board.
Interim Solid Waste Manager Roy Teeters suggested a similar idea but separately suggested allowing residents to order a “green waste” cart and having city crews haul their contents to the green waste plant.
Sullivan said trash officials will have to hash out the suggestions while exploring whether they could even change the NeWSolutions contract — a likelihood in any scenario, he said.
He said he would ask the board at its Aug. 27 meeting to request a formal opinion from the city attorney.
Recycling advocate Lauren Lunsford, the only person who spoke during a public comment segment of the board’s meeting, said she’s “pretty hurt and angry” over the recent yard waste revelations.
She asked the board to consider a proposal by former Mayor Kathy Taylor, Bartlett’s re-election opponent, to form a citizen advisory committee for yard waste.
“I’ve cried, believe it or not,” she said. “I just don’t feel like we’re really being represented right now.”
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A cause of the fire is under investigation.
