Tulsa City Council's Trash Operations Task Force received comments and suggestions from about 65 residents, but its recommendations — due at the end of the month — aren't much clearer.
District Five Councilor Karen Gilbert is the task force chair. She said the level of public response was good and indicated a clear preference.
"The comments that we've received on our council website have been very positive, that a majority of the comments want some sort of green waste pickup," Gilbert said.
The task force is set to present its recommendations to the Tulsa Authority for the Recovery of Energy board at the end of the month. The task force, however, is struggling to prepare those recommendations.
In a two-hour meeting, task force members again debated every aspect of their draft recommendations, including whether Tulsa should even have a separate green waste stream.
TARE board Chairman Randall Sullivan said the task force is trying too hard to solve every green waste problem right now.
"There isn't a simple solution," Sullivan said. "You heard in there that we talked about everything, and then finally, at the end of the meeting, came back to the problem, which is a separate green waste stream as we presently have it is done by bags, which cannot be debagged, so they're going to Covanta."
Covanta is the company that runs Tulsa's energy-from-waste facility, where materials are incinerated.
Task force members did agree that Tulsans should be allowed to put green waste in their trash carts when it fits.
