City Of Tulsa Offers Educational Video On Trash Collection Changes

The City of Tulsa opened bids in early October from contractors interested in providing trash service for the next decade.

The bids are still being reviewed. Once that is done, a committee will recommend a contractor, and the specifics of the service, to the city of Tulsa's Authority for the Recovery of Energy (TARE) board.

The city says Tulsa is required by state law to competitively bid its trash collection and disposal contract.

TARE cannot continue to renew the existing contract, which has been in place for more than 30 years. The committee is looking at several things in the bids including….

• Comparing the costs of once-a-week to twice-a-week service.
• Including recycling in the collection service.
• Moving to a volume-based service by using carts to keep costs down for the entire city.
• Ending the city's current subsidy of trash service and charge the appropriate costs for the service - all while keeping rates as low as possible

Some of the possible changes included under a new contract are:

• Creating a uniform, consistent trash service where everyone in the city is offered the same options and the same rates. (80 percent of the city has twice a week service without a cart system using a private contractor. The other 20 percent of the city has once a week and uses a cart system using city crews.)
• Switching to a cart-based system
• Selecting one frequency of collection that will be applied citywide.
• Using one contractor for all collection services, rather than splitting services between city crews and contractor crews.
• Offering unlimited green waste pick-up and unlimited bulky waste pick-up as extra services so that non-users or low generators stop subsidizing those who have more to discard.
• Continuing to offer special backyard, premium and low-generator/elderly collection services

To find out more, the city of Tulsa has put together an educational video about the bids and what the requirements are under the new guidelines: http://www.cityoftulsa.org

11/10/2011 Related Story: Tulsa City Council's Vote On Crucial City Service Gets Trashed