American Waste Control’s Tulsa Recycle & Transfer facility is almost ready to resume operations after a devastating fire shut it down in April, the city announced Thursday.
Trash and recyclables have been thrown into the same trucks and taken to the same destination since, but come Jan. 31, the city says customers need to be sure their items are separated — trash in the gray cart and recycling in the blue cart — at 5 a.m. on their pickup day. Refuse and recycling will be collected separately starting that day.
Contamination — mixing unrecyclable items or trash in with recyclables — can cause major problems at TRT’s processing facility, and if bad enough, it can send a whole batch to the trash.
The city encourages residents to remember that only items such as aluminum and steel cans, paper and cardboard, plastic bottles and jugs, glass jars and bottles should be included in their recycling. For more information about the Tulsa’s trash and recycling program, visit tulsarecycles.com.
The city also clarified that all batteries should be recycled through the M.e.t. and specialized battery stores. M.e.t. Depot locations can be found at metrecycle.com.
A lithium ion battery ignited the after-hours blaze that destroyed TRT’s old Material Recovery Facility (also known as Mr. Murph), bungling the chain of municipal waste removal as far as Bartlesville.
All trash and recyclables in Tulsa have since been sent to Covanta Tulsa, a waste-to-energy furnace, to be burned for electricity.
The city noted that the Jan. 31, 2022, date for separate collection of recycling is different from the December date announced in this month’s City Life utility bill newsletter, which it says was printed far in advance.