Changes to Tulsa's residential trash system

[nathanm]

Pray tell where you can buy some 200 trash bags for $25 that BA pays.

What size and thickness? Drawstring or no? There are plenty of places on the Internets to buy such things.

[TeeDub]

If the present trash pickup is broken what is broken about it?     
   

It doesn't subsidize recycling?    It promotes waste?

[godboko71]

Are shadows and saur some radio hosts prank?

[shadows]

What size and thickness? Drawstring or no? There are plenty of places on the Internets to buy such things.

BA’s bags are 30 inches X 32 inches deep.  Physical measurement 2.5 thousands thickness.  No drawstring.
Be sure to file and pay the sales tax report on internet purchases.

Another Albatross of the new concept of representative government that is going to educate the people now of changes after they have hung it around their necks. 

$25 dollars per year projected for bags will increase the cost of trash pickup in Tulsa to the base of $17.60 for 1\2 of the present service. 

[nathanm]

$25 dollars per month projected for bags will increase the cost of trash pickup in Tulsa to the base of $17.60 for 1\2 of the present service. 

If you manage to fill 413 bags of trash in a month beyond what can be recycled, I will eat my hat.

[RecycleMichael]

I buy bags at Sam's and give them out free to any group that wants to pick up litter. Last week I gave out 1,000 bags to Guts Church for a cleanup in west Tulsa. I buy over 10,000 bags a year.

Lately I have been buying these...
http://www.samsclub.com/sams/shop/product.jsp?productId=118596&navAction=

With tax they cost me 12 cents a piece. I can find them cheaper, but I like the way these work for that job and I like how they are packaged.

[heironymouspasparagus]

I buy bags at Sam's and give them out free to any group that wants to pick up litter. Last week I gave out 1,000 bags to Guts Church for a cleanup in west Tulsa. I buy over 10,000 bags a year.

Lately I have been buying these...
http://www.samsclub.com/sams/shop/product.jsp?productId=118596&navAction=

With tax they cost me 12 cents a piece. I can find them cheaper, but I like the way these work for that job and I like how they are packaged.

Can't you get a tax number to save that little bit extra?

We like those, too.  Have been using them for quite a while.  Just had to buy a new box over the weekend.  And also got the BA bags today.


Those BA bags aren't free - they are included in the trash pickup charges.

Have you seen the workers comp numbers for the trash pickup in BA?  Is it higher than, for example, Tulsa?  Hadn't thought about that, but I certainly don't want anyone hurting themselves to do any job!  If the bags are a big contributor to health problems, then they gotta go.

[Conan71]

Can't you get a tax number to save that little bit extra?

What, and jump on the corporate welfare train?

[heironymouspasparagus]

What, and jump on the corporate welfare train?

I thought he was a 503C (or whatever the real term is for a non-profit.)

[RecycleMichael]

We have a 501 c3 called "friends of the M.e.t.".

These are purchased by the trust authority named The M.e.t.

I am very careful to keep things separate.

[carltonplace]

If the present trash pickup is broken what is broken about it?     
   

1. I have to provide my own bin (mine is 6 months old and the lid is flattened, my last bin was stolen)
2. I have to pay for recycling or take my own to the MET in my car (stinky/sticky!)
3. The truck comes by twice a week but I only have garbage in my bin once a week. That is wasted gasoline that I still pay for.
4. The city uses a surplus to subsidize trash pickup which artificially keeps the price low. That money is gone now.
5. On windy days trash blows everywhere and we have to chase it and pick it up.

[RecycleMichael]

6. People who produce little trash pay the same price as large generators.

[PonderInc]

I am totally fine with the new trash plan, and I'm excited to receive a big recycling bin.

One question:
Still haven't heard the final word on green waste.  Do we have to buy specific bags?  How big are they? Can we use our existing trash cans for green waste? (Seems "more green" to reuse existing trash cans than to buy disposable bags...)

We have a big yard, huge hedge, dozens of mature shrubs, and a neighborhood full of mature deciduous trees.  No problem with the leaves.  We mulch them into the lawn as they fall, and then forget about it. 

The hedge and the shrubs are a different story, especially this time of year when everything grows a couple feet every week.  This weekend, I trimmed one holly bush and one nandina and filled up 7 trash cans.  (Yes, we have 7 trash cans, just for green waste!)  Two shrubs down, 32 to go... A few weeks ago I trimmed about 2/3 of the hedge and filled 25 trash cans and contractor bags.

If we're going to be required to use dinky little green waste bags like some cities (small plastic or paper bags), I'm in trouble.  May have to get together with the neighbors and buy a communal chipper/shredder...

[shadows]

6. People who produce little trash pay the same price as large generators.

______________________________________________________________________________________
It seems that most people are not aware that the present trash pickup is conducted by a confederacy of independent trash haulers who buy their own trucks, pay their own insurance, buy their own fuel and are responsible for their own employees.  They are experienced in doing the job.   What was wrong with that system?
Lets post the contract as the citizens of Tulsa are the silent signer of the contract, to make sure citizens are not spending another hundred million dollars for a trash burner that they never owned.     

[TeeDub]

1. I have to provide my own bin (mine is 6 months old and the lid is flattened, my last bin was stolen)
2. I have to pay for recycling or take my own to the MET in my car (stinky/sticky!)
3. The truck comes by twice a week but I only have garbage in my bin once a week. That is wasted gasoline that I still pay for.
4. The city uses a surplus to subsidize trash pickup which artificially keeps the price low. That money is gone now.
5. On windy days trash blows everywhere and we have to chase it and pick it up.

Even if the city provides you a bin, it will come out of your pocket.

Now I have to pay for your recycling.   Most of which, while "good" for the environment is a cash sink, not a revenue generator.