TULSA, Oklahoma — A local tree expert says the way the City of Tulsa is running its green waste disposal facility is causing the city to be defrauded.
FOX23 showed you the lines and piles of debris at the city’s free green waste dump just south of Tulsa International Airport.
However, Rickert Tree Services certified arborist Todd Rickert says the entire operation is being overwhelmed, not by residents but by contractors.
“You’re overloaded. You don’t have the equipment. You don’t have the staff. I just don’t understand why they offer this when 80% of their waste comes from contractors who get paid to take the waste away. Allow that service for homeowners, but I don’t think I’ve ever been to a city in the United States where contractors can fundamentally dispose of for free at taxpayer expense,” Rickert said.
FOX23 caught up with Rickert, who is still busy removing trees from homes and lawns after the Father’s Day storm.
He and his team, like others, dumped their debris at the site near Latimer and North 89th East Ave.
Rickert says the pile isn’t primarily from local residents, but from contractors who would normally pay a fee to dump their debris elsewhere, and he believes the site isn’t capable of handling the daily loads and that non-residents should pay. including his own service.
“If it’s coming from a contractor, they’ve got maybe five thousand pound pieces of wood that they’ve ground up into mulch. If it comes from a homeowner, it could be a 500-pound load of branches, and that load of branches is a lot easier for the city to process,” he said.
The city opened the green waste landfill due to problems with storm damage and power outages at the traditional mulch landfill. The land was donated by the airport and was available to everyone in Tulsa free of charge because the city wanted to make cleaning as easy as possible.
Residents’ IDs were recently checked, but some contractors are also Tulsa residents.
Rickert says he saw even then trucks get stuck, people injured while unloading their own debris, and that the city’s equipment outside was unable to handle the heavy loads that were still arriving.
“If the city just processed trash from homeowners, it probably wouldn’t have this problem,” Rickert said.
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https://www.fox23.com/news/local-tree-expert-says-how-tulsa-is-operating-green-waste-site-is-causing-city-to/article_841d23c4-1fa3-11ee-9bd6-87dd151783dd.html
