The City of Tulsa is required to perform quarterly audits to help avoid high contamination rates among 109,000 Tulsa recycling customers. With the recycling program just over a year old, city staff has found that most citizens have embraced the new recycling system and are recycling more, not just because it keeps refuse rates down, but because it's better for the environment.

What is a recycling audit? City solid waste staff joins the recycling haulers on daily routes to view recyclable materials in blue carts. Then, they go to work educating the customers. While in the field, City staff leaves information on recycling; including items that the City can collect and process, as well as items that cannot be reused, marketed or that cause mechanical problems at the processing facility.

When a customer has placed an item in the blue cart that cannot be accepted for processing, the recycling guidelines are left at the home. If a customer does not wish to follow the guidelines three times in a row, and after the customer has been contacted by phone or in person by city staff, the blue recycling cart will be removed from the customer.

A customer may always opt to pay for an additional gray cart for regular household trash. Using the volume-based system, customers pay for what they throw into the trash. Recyclers often opt for smaller gray trash carts to reduce their utility costs.

For mor information, please contact The Customer Care Center at: (918) 596-2100.