Tulsa Trash Service Becoming More Eco-Friendly

Tulsa's trash system is changing, and so is what Tulsa does with its trash. And it's trending more towards being environmentally friendly.

It's still undecided who will pick up the trash - but what happens from there is final - some goes into recycling - and some will burned and converted into energy.

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Tom Hill's company sorts through commercial trash to pull out what can be recycled - and soon they'll start processing recyclables from every address in the city.

American Waste Control won the contract to handle the city's recycling.

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"I think you're going to double what you're recycling right now and I think within the first year you're going to double again from that ratio," Hill said.

American Waste already had plans for a $5 million upgrade to handle the growing demand for recycling. Getting the contract for Tulsa's residential recycling only adds to that.

"If people could really understand how recycling affects our environment, what it takes to recycle something as opposed to having to dig for that raw material. It's a tremendous difference. I'm hoping they see that and get involved in the recycling side of it," Hill said.

Tulsa's last stop for trash will be at Covanta Energy. The company will handle everything from the trash carts - and expects that having recyclables already pulled out will only make the trash burn better.

"So it's an integral part of a fully integrated waste management system," said Matthew Newman of Covanta Energy.

Covanta burns the trash - and recovers energy in the process, that helps make it more affordable than using a landfill.

"That energy - the municipal solid waste is converted into steam in a boiler and two thirds of the steam goes to the refinery across the street. Approximately a third is delivered to a generator, converted to electricity and delivered to the PSO power grid," Newman explained.

The decisions on recycling - and disposal were the only ones finalized Thursday. The decision on the hauler - who picks up the trash - was put off for a couple of weeks.