Terminating Tulsa government inefficency

[RecycleMichael]

quote:Originally posted by Miss Solemnis
I'm confused.  We just moved back to Tulsa in October and have once a week pick up.  Do different areas of the city have different pickups - some once a week, some twice a week?

North of 244 and west of Yale have once-a-week trash service with city-provided carts, and the rest of the city has twice-a-week service with cusomer provided cans.

The once a week is about 3 dollars cheaper.

[waterboy]

I watched on TGOV a long explanation of a proposal for once a week pickup, done by Steve Berlin to a city board. The upshot (sorry, I couldn't last through the whole meeting) was that it is not only feasible but would potentially save a lot of expense. The carts are larger. Its a more efficient system.

The main problem seemed to be the public's perceived attitude that it would be a reduction in service. That was exacerbated by the attitude of northside councillors who were unhappy that the rest of the city gets twice a week while they have to "suffer" with once a week.

It looks like nothing came of it all. Makes too much sense.

[godboko71]

I have once a week service with the city provided trashcan, much better service then when I lived on the east side and has twice a week service. Well better might be the wrong word, more reliable might be more fitting.

As for recycling I just take my own stuff to the met in Sand Springs. No need for curb side while the service is still unreliable.

[tulsa1603]

quote:Originally posted by jne

quote:Originally posted by RecycleMichael

quote:Originally posted by jne
It should most definitely be free.  What proportion does not opt for curbside recycling? Seems like you could charge a minuscule recycling fee to all and cover my 2 dollars a month for unreliable service.  I would estimate that my bins are emptied about half of the time I have it out for the scheduled day.

Why should it be free?

Tulsans never complain that they pay $15 a month for trash, then shout that recycling should be free.

The cost are very much the same for curbside collection of either. The difference is that Tulsans have said they want twice-a-week trash pickup and don't need any more than twice-a-month recycling pickup. That is the reality we need to change.

The Tulsa trash contractor is paid a hundred dollars a year to come by your house. The same company gets $31 a year to pickup the 10% of the Tulsans who voluntarily pay two dollars a month for it. That is the majority of the trash expenses.

Tulsa pays about $25 a year to the landfill for disposal from the average home.

The value of the recyclables from the average home at todays' prices is about $30 a year and that is counting on continued tonnage from neewspapers and aluminum cans, both of which are declining. That also doesn't account for sorting and baling.

There is no free curbside recycling in any town in America. It might not show up as a line item on your bill, but it is usbsidized somewhere.

It should be free because the goal is to have more folks recycle.  As it stands, the incentive is to NOT recycle. I think that is simple enough.  
I would have no problem with a small increase in everyone's trash rate to include recycling, but that won't necessarily get more people to do so - so why not consider penalizing the fee to those that choose not to recycle?

FTR - I think once a week is plenty for normal trash pickup

Exactly.  In Austin, recycling is the standard, and you are extremely limited on how much trash you can put out - and all additional trash is an extra charge...  Makes you think twice about what you throw away and much more likely to buy recyclable containers, etc..

I grew up on once a week trash pick up, and we never had any problem - those carts are huge.  When I moved here, I thought twice a week was insane.  It is a RARE week that I put trash out twice.

[Townsend]

I put trash out twice a week even if I only have one bag...it's not that I want twice a week, it just feels like I'm wasteful if I don't use them each time they are on my street.

I'm absolutely for once a week.

What happens with yard waste limits if we do eventually switch to once a week pick-up?

[carltonplace]

Let me answer for RM:

Yard clippings and leaves should be placed in a compost pile and reused in flower and vegetable gardens after decomposition. The nutrients in compost are perfect for planting. Why buy dirt when you can make it? There is no reason to take this type of yard waste to the landfill.

Tree limbs and brush can be set out at the curb in 4' bundles to be picked up, or taken to the city's green waste site.

[Townsend]

Huh, RM's got a forum wife.  That is scrumptiooouuussss.

[RecycleMichael]

CarltonPlace has just heard me give enough speeches.

Here is a column I wrote about composting a couple of months ago...

This is the week that leaves begin to gently drop from the trees onto our lawns. This is part of the giant recycling system of the earth. The leaves, which consist of carbon, nitrogen and water, will eventually break down into a fine layer of nutrients for your lawn. Despite this great benefit, many Tulsans will rake leaves into plastic bags and put them at the curb for the trash man to take them away.

My goal is to convince those citizens to stop that wasteful habit. First of all, the bags cost money. Secondly, the trash trucks fill up faster than during the rest of the year which means more trips to the landfill. More truckloads mean more air pollution and wear and tear on our roads plus filling up the landfill sooner. These two measures combine to cause trash rates to rise, even for those of us who don’t foolishly follow this bad behavior.

But we feel pressure to do something with all those leaves. We can’t just let Mother Nature do her magic because the leaves may cover up and hurt our carefully manicured lawns. What would the neighbors say if our leaves blew into their lawn? We have to do something. Well, there is something you can do with all those leaves that keeps our lawns neat, makes our neighbors happy and doesn’t waste valuable resources.

Just mow over them a few times. Start up that mower and grind them up. If you run over them a couple of times, the leaves will break down into small pieces that will amazingly disappear. You don’t need a special mulching blade on your mower, but it helps. All a mulching blade does is chop them a little more efficiently, but an extra pass with the mower will make up the difference.

If all this sounds like too much work, go ahead and rake into a pile but avoid the plastic bag. Just find a spot near a fence and make a pile. The leaves naturally compost and you will have wonderful new soil to use in the spring. You don’t need any enclosure, but it helps. For compost bin designs that you can make yourself, go to our website at www.metrecycle.com. Our leaves don’t belong in the trash. They are more valuable than trash and can be used by you to make a better lawn, garden and planet.  
 

[RecycleMichael]

Here is a past column I wrote about building a compost bin...

I keep writing about how important it is to compost your leaves, but I haven’t really talked much about the different types of compost bins you can make to help turns those leaves into valuable soil. Here is how you can make your own using simple and easy to find materials.

The best compost bin I ever saw was one my father made for my mother fifteen years ago. It was composed of four pallets standing on their side and held together with some hinges left over from a remodeling project. He joined three of the sides but left one corner unhinged so he could swing it open and add leaves or take out compost. It was about four feet wide by four feet four feet deep and four feet high. That is a perfect size because it is big enough to generate some heat but not so big that the edges cool off.

I have a nice one at my house that was made but leftover pieces of a chain link fence. I had five posts and about eighteen feet of fence. I sat the posts in the shape of a “C” with the back edge about ten feet long and four foot sides. It is a double size bin where I stack the fall leaves on one side, the grass from the summer in the other corner and blend them into the middle to speed up the composting process.

We built a very nice compost bin a few years ago as a demonstration project using 48 cinder blocks placed in the same “C” shape. I alternated the side of the blocks to have a solid side with the holes so it would have strength and yet allow for plenty of air holes. On the top row we used the alternating holes to make little planter boxes where we grew flowers and some leaf lettuce in season.

I have seen a really nice compost bin in a friend’s midtown backyard that was chicken wire put in a circle and another friend used a door hole blade to make little circles in an oversized plastic trash bin. I have seen compost made in sideways barrels, horse troughs that won’t hold water and backyard cookers that had seen better days. All these types of homemade compost bins had two things in common; they worked just fine and didn’t cost much money.  

[RecycleMichael]

My favorite column on composting was one I wrote for the Tulsa Garden Center newsletter three or four years ago...

I was once a man who didn’t contribute much to our land. Before I settled down, I probably sowed enough wild oats to qualify for a farm loan. But now that I have some roots and even a piece of land, I think differently. With my landowner responsibility comes a realization that I’m obsessed with my soil. While other gardeners lean toward flowers and vegetables that add beauty or salads to their day, I am most proud of dirt in my garden. OK. I said it. I am a dirt farmer. Before you come to conclusions, hear me out.

Try to step away from the garden as far as possible and see the big picture. In this case, my step is really far and my picture is from outer space. From space, the earth is a big rock, full of water. It has a little thin crust, in perspective, as thin as a peel of an apple. This crust, called soil, dictates our quality of life in that all the air we breathe and most of the food we eat comes from this little layer.

If we have one role as earthlings, it is to make more crust. When I build a new garden in a place that was just yard before, I have contributed to a more fertile planet. I can go out and buy some dirt, but the best way to make a new or better garden is with soil made with grass clippings from the very land the garden surrounds.

When we bag up grass clippings and throw them away, we have missed the chance to make a better world. I know it sounds harsh, but you could be a good environmentalist who recycles everything, has a low flow shower nozzle or even carpools everywhere they go, but if you throw away grass clippings, you have negated all that good. I could even go beyond our earth by the words of Henry David Thoreau who said, “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads”.

I know that life is simpler when you plow around the stumps and you can make the argument that composting your own soil takes time and work. But ask a proud gardener about their soil and I bet you will find many who make it themselves with their own grass. There’s not a better way to make a better earth.