Note sure how RM hasn't posted this already:
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=071105_1_A19_hTras37046
quote:
Once-a-week refuse pickup
by: BRIAN BARBER World Staff Writer
11/5/2007
Trash tryout a success: Cart-based, once-a-week garbage collection may eventually go citywide.
The success of a pilot trash program that has converted five Tulsa collection routes to a once-a-week, cart-based service could lead to a switch for the entire city.
Tulsa's trash board intends to ask the City Council this month to remove the six-month time limit along with the cap on the number of participants from the pilot program ordinance.
That will allow the program to continue in the pilot areas and additional routes to be added.
Eventually, a plan to change all twice-a-week service routes to the new once-a-week service by 2011 is expected to be presented to the council.
"I really think this is the future of Tulsa's trash collection," said Joe Moran, chairman of the Tulsa Authority for the Recovery of Energy.
The program was launched last summer with 1,855 participating households in the areas of South Peoria Avenue, Swan Lake, Florence Park North, Sheridan Hills South and Florence Park South.
Each residence was provided with one 96-gallon, wheeled trash cart and an 18-gallon recycling bin. Smaller sizes of carts also were available.
The monthly curbside service fee for the program is $12.52, which includes recycling pickup regardless of whether the customer chooses to recycle.
By comparison, the fee for the city's standard twice-a-week curbside service is $13.44, plus a $2 optional recycling charge, and customers have to provide their own trash carts.
Responses to a survey in four of the pilot program areas show that 78 percent like the new service and 69 percent said it encouraged them to recycle more. The area of Florence Park South will be surveyed in December.
"We're very pleased with the results," said Frank Erwin, the Public Works Department's field customer services manager. "Once people gave it a chance, they liked it."
Erwin said most areas of the country are going toward this type of service.
Some of the benefits include reducing by half the wear and tear on city streets by garbage trucks, he said.
Also, the carts prevent worker injuries because they are mechanically dumped and control litter better with their closeable tops.
The routes selected for the pilot program were based on the willingness of customers to participate and the trash haulers who wanted to equip their trucks with lifters.
Most of the city's trash collection -- about 91,000 households -- is contracted with Tulsa Refuse Inc., a consortium of independent haulers.
That area has the twice-a-week service that the authority hopes to change.
A small segment of Tulsa known as the northwest quadrant -- with 25,000 households -- is serviced by city employees and already has once-a-week, cart-based service.
Cheryl Cohenour, who heads up the authority's long-range planning committee, said it has been the panel's goal to adopt a uniform service across the city.
"We're going to have to do a lot of education to get people prepared," she said. "Change can be difficult. But these survey results show it's possible."
The story didn't quote me...
This is a good idea. We really only need once-a-week trash and this will allow us to lower the rate and offer free recycling bins to every home.
I am certain that there are going to be some folk who demand that they be allowed to throw things away twice-a-week, but the limits won't change. It will still be unlimited residential trash disposal.
The rest of the country is going to once-a-week trash collection, we can too.
Do you buy additional bins for extra trash or set it on the curb in bags?
They are giving out very nice 95 gallon rolling carts. You won't need to buy your own trash cans any more.
quote:
Originally posted by recyclemichael
They are giving out very nice 95 gallon rolling carts. You won't need to buy your own trash cans any more.
What if you throw out more than that?
I currently own 30 gallon trash cans... 7 of them.
I'm a pack rat, in recovery.
There will be provisions to get additional containers...but we need to talk.
Waste is a terrible thing to mind.
$12.52/month is not a bad price for both garbage and recycle. When we first got our house here in Phoenix we had twice a week trash and no recycle. Once we got our recycle can our we had more recycled than trash.
I really have no problem with converting to once-a-week trash pickup with the 95-gallon rolling cart. It would serve my household just fine. I assume they would still allow the maximum of 6 bags of yard/landscape waste per pickup, or perhaps double that to 12 with only once a week service.
What does bother me is I see this as an example of continuing decline of city services at rising costs to the citizen. When I was a young child in Tulsa, late 1950s-early 1960s, most families burned their trash in back yard trash burners. That was banned, and rightly so. Then in the 1960s the standard was twice a week, back yard trash service. No one had to haul their trash to the curb. The trash men would go into your back yard routinely and dispose of garbage, and our neighborhood streets were free of stray trash and neglected cans blowing around.
Then in the 1970s, the standard became twice a week curb service and we now had to haul our cans to the curb. OK, adjustments made. Now, they want to cut that back to once a week. What is next? Will we have to haul our own trash to the dumps or a neighborhood drop off point ourselves and pay the City for the privilege? I better keep my mouth shut; I wouldn't want to give the City any brilliant ideas.
I don't have a problem with once a week trash service (I usually forget the second day anyway), but will they bump up recycling to every week? I don't like the twice monthly recycling, since I can never remember which week. I often forget, then end up hauling tons of recycling to the curb the next go around. I am concerned the image my neighbors might have when they see trash cans full of beer & wine bottles.
Yes. The new proposed service levels are one and one..One day a week for trash and one day a week for recycling. Ideally, many neighborhoods will have the same day for both.
That's great - we often end up recycling every OTHER time they come around because we also forget. Having it weekly would be nice.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve
I really have no problem with converting to once-a-week trash pickup with the 95-gallon rolling cart. It would serve my household just fine. I assume they would still allow the maximum of 6 bags of yard/landscape waste per pickup, or perhaps double that to 12 with only once a week service.
What does bother me is I see this as an example of continuing decline of city services at rising costs to the citizen. When I was a young child in Tulsa, late 1950s-early 1960s, most families burned their trash in back yard trash burners. That was banned, and rightly so. Then in the 1960s the standard was twice a week, back yard trash service. No one had to haul their trash to the curb. The trash men would go into your back yard routinely and dispose of garbage, and our neighborhood streets were free of stray trash and neglected cans blowing around.
Then in the 1970s, the standard became twice a week curb service and we now had to haul our cans to the curb. OK, adjustments made. Now, they want to cut that back to once a week. What is next? Will we have to haul our own trash to the dumps or a neighborhood drop off point ourselves and pay the City for the privilege? I better keep my mouth shut; I wouldn't want to give the City any brilliant ideas.
We have the once a week service in Jenks, and for another four or five dollars they will come and get the container for you and return it so you don't have to be bothered.
So if we want the once a week service for our neighborhood, whom do we contact?
There is a pilot program going on in five neighborhoods of about 1900 homes.
The TARE board is going before the city council to ask for more time. I think it will show up on the committee agenda for next Tuesday.
If the council is OK with extending the program, it is just a matter of time before it is proposed to go citywide.
It will take a while to implement, adding three thousand homes a month will take about two and a half years to complete.
When I lived in Chandler, Az, they were going to implement recycling. They divided the city into quarters and determined that it would take 4 years to get recycling set up citywide. After about 3 months in the first section, the city found it was making money on the recycled products so they had the program set up and going citywide in 9 months.
Why would it take so long?
Also, we put all our recyclables in one big can, papers, glass, cans, etc, and it was sorted at the facility. It was also free.
Why do we have to pay and why can't we recycle all plastics?
quote:
Originally posted by recyclemichael
There is a pilot program going on in five neighborhoods of about 1900 homes.
The TARE board is going before the city council to ask for more time. I think it will show up on the committee agenda for next Tuesday.
If the council is OK with extending the program, it is just a matter of time before it is proposed to go citywide.
It will take a while to implement, adding three thousand homes a month will take about two and a half years to complete.
I'm on it and really like it. It's very convenient and It also means that when I recycle now, I am not putting money in Spincycle's pockets. Bonus.
quote:
Originally posted by Double A
quote:
Originally posted by recyclemichael
There is a pilot program going on in five neighborhoods of about 1900 homes.
The TARE board is going before the city council to ask for more time. I think it will show up on the committee agenda for next Tuesday.
If the council is OK with extending the program, it is just a matter of time before it is proposed to go citywide.
It will take a while to implement, adding three thousand homes a month will take about two and a half years to complete.
I'm on it and really like it. It's very convenient and It also means that when I recycle now, I am not putting money in Spincycle's pockets. Bonus.
I do curbside recycling and it doesn't go to the MET. It goes to a random pickup with a bailing wire trailer. However, curbside doesn't pick up as much as the MET does. No junkmail/office paper, no cardboard, etc.
I know doubleA...you attack me in almost every thread...it sure is getting old.
We also take items like batteries, eyeglasses, motor oil, anti-freeze. We are also open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Many people do a combination of curbside and drop-off. The curbside option is great for most things, but sometimes you have too much and don't want to wait till the next pickup.
The M.e.t. also has lots of customers who have small businesses or live in an apartment.
The M.e.t. also employs over 100 workers with disabilities. Many of our loyal recyclers choose the drop-off centers because they want to employ these type of workers.
One day we will find out the DoubleA secretly has a crush on RM..
half the service, half the fee. and we need to get real with the recycling program here. If you are going to pick up trash once a week you better DAMN well have free recycling. Someone is making money off of my recycled goods and I shouldn't have to PAY for the priviledge.
why we don't have a pay as you throw system here is beyond me. When I moved here from Fayeteville I was like pancakes is UP with the trash system here.
This is what happens when you don't have a city manager and instead have a bunch of idiots just looking out for themselves. Our trash situation here is the DEFINITION of government waste.
Somebody, ANYBODY, needs to drive 2 hours east to Fayetteville and see how they handle trash....it is LIGHT YEARS ahead of what we have here.
bottom line, this "pilot program" is a ****ing joke, and it is like putting a bandaid on a severed leg. who the **** comes up with these ideas?
I can take some of the blame, inteller. I have failed to convince leaders to do more. We have had lots of issues, including paying off $180 million debt to the burn plant that has kept us from progressing.
People love their Tulsa trash hauler and think the price is fair. The monthly complaints levels are less than 3 tenths of one per cent of the customers.
By the way, it isn't half the service. It still allows unlimited trash disposal. Tulsa is charging $12.52 per month for the pilot program and allows extra bags of household waste at no charge.
Fayetteville is charging $18.27 for the same level of service per month (50% more than Tulsa) and charges $6 for every bag that doesn't fit in the polycart.
We have to take baby steps in Tulsa because change is hard when no one complains. Once we get everybody on the same one and one cart and recycling bin system, we can implement better billing options like pay-as-you-throw.
In AUstin, recylcing is free, and you get a cart, though it's much much smaller than we have here. Trash pick up is only once a week. If you have more trash than fits in the cart, you have to buy special tags or bags at the grocery store for like $3.00 per bag for anything additional. Lawn clippings and leaves are also required to be in these large paper bags that you buy at the grocery store, I don't think there is a limit on the # of those type of bags. This encourages recycling and composting IMHO, though my Austin friends ***** about it. Just try to throw a soda can away down there - "Hey man, that's gotta be recycled, otherwise I might have to pay for it!!"
The city of Austin charges $17.25 a month for the 95 gallon trash cart serviced once a week and "free" recycling. Each bag that does not fit into your cart is charged $2 as well.
Austin also charges $2.60 per month on all electric customers to pay for litter cleanup, dead animal pickup and household hazardous waste collections. Tulsa does these things without charging more.
Tulsa could do all the things that every other city does, but here everybody wants the cheapest trash rates possible.
One thing they did in Virginia that I miss is the leaf pick up. Once or twice a season, you could rake your leaves to the curb. The city came by with this huge vacuum to suck up & mulch all of the leaves. You were only allowed to rake the leaves 24 hours ahead of time, to prevent them from clogging the sewers. It was wonderful--I don't mind raking leaves, but I hate bagging or mulching them. I usually end up with way too many leaves for my compost pile, but I hate just throwing them away.
RM, is there any savings in collection costs via less fuel and maintenance on the trucks or is that nil since it still doesn't reduce the overall amount of trash nor increase the capacity of the trucks?
I like the idea, I'm on Monday/Thurs. and over the last two months they have been picking up the Monday trash before 7am. So if I forget to curb it by Sunday night it sits till Thurs. anyhow. More convenient recycling is appealing as well. Since I'm only a block north of one of the test areas I hope we are next.
Yes, there are savings to the contract haulers for getting the trash in one pass rather than coming back another day in the week.
That is why this pilot program came from them. They are the ones who are going to see any savings. The city won't see any reduction in expenses by changing collection schedules. It will however see less damage to roads, air quality, etc.
The contract pays them a pretty fair price and they do a good job. Their costs have been rising dramatically for employees, insurance and fuel.
The only way we will keep rates low is to allow them to offer suggestions like this. The change in trash collection is what allows the city to offer free recycling bins to every home.
quote:
Originally posted by pmcalk
One thing they did in Virginia that I miss is the leaf pick up. Once or twice a season, you could rake your leaves to the curb. The city came by with this huge vacuum to suck up & mulch all of the leaves. You were only allowed to rake the leaves 24 hours ahead of time, to prevent them from clogging the sewers. It was wonderful--I don't mind raking leaves, but I hate bagging or mulching them. I usually end up with way too many leaves for my compost pile, but I hate just throwing them away.
Oh that would be sweet! One day I was raking leaves, and I usually rake them to the curb then into bags...purely by coincidence, it just so happened that the streetsweeper was coming down my street. Talk about perfect timing. THe streetsweeper guy just smiled and waved as my leaves got sucked up :-)
quote:
Originally posted by recyclemichael
The city of Austin charges $17.25 a month for the 95 gallon trash cart serviced once a week and "free" recycling. Each bag that does not fit into your cart is charged $2 as well.
Austin also charges $2.60 per month on all electric customers to pay for litter cleanup, dead animal pickup and household hazardous waste collections. Tulsa does these things without charging more.
Tulsa could do all the things that every other city does, but here everybody wants the cheapest trash rates possible.
I'd be surprised if Austin's carts were even 95 gallons, they look much smaller than anything I've seen around here. I like our trash service - it is simply amazing how much we get for the price we pay. I'm perfectly content going to once a week for the same price, though.
Austin does offer three different size bins...a 35 gallon, a 65 gallon and a 95 gallon.
You must have chosen a smaller one. 95 gallon is the industry norm, but cities that offer a choice have a better system.
I know we will get there some day.
quote:
Originally posted by recyclemichael
I can take some of the blame, inteller. I have failed to convince leaders to do more. We have had lots of issues, including paying off $180 million debt to the burn plant that has kept us from progressing.
People love their Tulsa trash hauler and think the price is fair. The monthly complaints levels are less than 3 tenths of one per cent of the customers.
By the way, it isn't half the service. It still allows unlimited trash disposal. Tulsa is charging $12.52 per month for the pilot program and allows extra bags of household waste at no charge.
Fayetteville is charging $18.27 for the same level of service per month (50% more than Tulsa) and charges $6 for every bag that doesn't fit in the polycart.
We have to take baby steps in Tulsa because change is hard when no one complains. Once we get everybody on the same one and one cart and recycling bin system, we can implement better billing options like pay-as-you-throw.
we need to buy back the TTE plant for a song and stop filling up landfills. period. we also need to charge $6 a bag so people are less likely to go stuffing whatever the hell they want in the trash bin.
fayetteville's method is not bad because someone always has some extra bags at the end of the year that they don't need and you can just get them. it creates a little grey market for the bags but no big deal.
I think this is a great idea, and wish I lived in one of the neighborhoods that had the pilot program. I think it will encourage more people to recycle, since they will not have to pay extra for it.
My inlaws live in Denton, TX that has a plan where you buy the trash bags, and however many you put out determines what you pay for trash. The more you use, the more you pay. I always thought that was fair.
Nick
quote:
Originally posted by tulsa1603
quote:
Originally posted by pmcalk
One thing they did in Virginia that I miss is the leaf pick up. Once or twice a season, you could rake your leaves to the curb. The city came by with this huge vacuum to suck up & mulch all of the leaves. You were only allowed to rake the leaves 24 hours ahead of time, to prevent them from clogging the sewers. It was wonderful--I don't mind raking leaves, but I hate bagging or mulching them. I usually end up with way too many leaves for my compost pile, but I hate just throwing them away.
Oh that would be sweet! One day I was raking leaves, and I usually rake them to the curb then into bags...purely by coincidence, it just so happened that the streetsweeper was coming down my street. Talk about perfect timing. THe streetsweeper guy just smiled and waved as my leaves got sucked up :-)
For those of us old enough to remember, they used to do that here in Tulsa too. You could rake all your leaves into the street, and the street vac/sweeper truck would come by and suck it all up. I don't remember the exact dates, but I think that service was discontinued in Tulsa in the 1970s. Another example of a useful city service to bite the dust.